Young Bartowski
by Doc in Oz
Summary: AU parody of film with similar name. Chuck is descended from an infamous ancestor. Can he animate an inarticulate Casey? How did Casey get his name? What is the name of the agency Sarah works for? Mwah ahh ahh!
1. Nice Hopping

-o0o-

**AN - **I blame Quistie64 and her version of Sound Of Music for this.

Apparently she is just as warped as I am... Freakishly, she'd watched this film the previous day, and had a rather silly thought...

So, all is normal, I cannot have an original idea. Mel Brooks on the other hand... he stol.. was inspired by James Whale and Mary Shelley (nee Wollstonecraft) to write some of the best stuff in cinema history.

Don't believe me?

One word – Blücher!

As of 06.09.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

-o0o-

**Chapter One**

-o0o-

It was a dark and stormy night.

The far off, and cinematically creepy, Transburbankylvania was being lashed with driving rain, and theatrically lit by lightning provided by tropical storm Eleanor, as she unleashed her fury on the unfortunate inhabitants of that impoverished and backwards province.

One such barrage of lightning illuminated the "For Lease" sign festooned with cobwebs in the window of a defunct Orange Orange yogurt franchise.

A shadowy figure ignored the two local peasants, one large one small and foreign looking, as they hurried across the depressing deserted parking lot, intent on making it to their local, The Jugular and Vein.

The shadowy figure used a key ring with an impressively large number of keys on it to open the disused fro-yo shop. The bins of sprinkles and gummy bears were covered in a layering of dust, and thanks to the levels of preservatives approved by that poorly informed government for child friendly treats, were as almost good enough to eat as they had been when the shop was open.

The shadowy figure wasn't here to snack on dusty sugary animal shaped goodies. He placed the key ring into his valise, took out a flashlight and placed the case on a small table. A fortuitous flash of lightning illuminated the gold leaf writing on the flap. 'Grunka and Ass. Attorneys at law.'

Max Grunka, for indeed that was the shadowy figure's name, opened the cash draw. He winced at the ominously creaky sound it made, and held his breath at the dust he'd disturbed. Underneath the cash draw he found and removed a large, yellowed envelope. He pulled it out, only to have it snatched out of his hands, back into the draw. More forcefully this time, he recovered it from the spring it had caught on.

The simultaneous lightning flash and thunder clash was purely coincidental as Grunka read the impressive family crest of the paperwork inside the envelope.

_Last Will and Testament of the Baron, Stephen Von Bartowski._

The thunder chose that moment to thunder.

-o0o-

Some time later, in a different, better lit and more enlightened local, the brilliant young neurologist, Dr Charles Bartowski was addressing his medical students in the lecture hall. Chuck still thought of himself as 'Chuck,' despite he and his sisters efforts to cultivate the correct atmosphere for an associate professor. Herr Professor Doctors weren't called Chuck. They were Charles'.

"...where it descends through the foramen magnum... to become... the spinal column. Please read up on chapter forty two of Woodcomb and Woodcomb. Are there any questions?" Chuck turned from the whiteboard and faced his students.

He noticed a man enter the hall, dressed in a somewhat out of style suit, that seemed to have been knitted out of marmalade. The man held a flap-top briefcase on his lap as he sat at the back.

A young student in the forward third of the hall raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Doctor Bartowski, I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between voluntary and reflexive synaptic responses..."

Chuck rubbed his hands together in anticipation "Excellent! That brings us to our next demonstration" he leant back, and looking off to the side, to what actors on a stage would call 'the wings,' rang a convenient gong.

A patient gurney was wheeled out by two orderlies with a man lying on the gurney, looking around him. The two 'green shirts', who bore name badges proclaiming their names to be 'Skip' and "Fernando,' left without saying a word.

Dr Charles Bartowski held a wireless microphone into the face of the patient. A little too close by the patient's expression, which accompanied the amplified "Fooomp!" as the mike bumped into his top lip.

"Your name is...?" Chuck asked the man.

"Erm.. Shaw. Daniel Shaw"

"Well, mister Shaw. Have you ever met me before?"

"No. I've never..."

"Excellent. Mister Shaw. Would you mind hopping up and standing here beside me?"

Shaw rolled to his side to get up as he normally would in his athletic manner. But the recent abdominal injury he'd sustained caused him to groan in pain and flop back onto his back. He manfully gritted his teeth and tried the other side.

Partway through his dismount, the knife wound let him know it was still there, and not happy about things. With another groan, Shaw was forced to clamber off the gurney eventually in an awkward backwards slide, the hospital gown flapping open to the massed students. Taking a moment to recover from the pain, Shaw eventually stood beside Chuck.

"Nice hopping" muttered Chuck to himself as he placed a friendly hand on Shaw's shoulder. He then addressed his students "Mister Shaw has kindly agreed to assist in the demonstration of the differences in conscious movement and autonomic reflexes. Watch how Mister Shaw will react instinctively in an uncontrollable reflex..." Chuck said almost without any change in his inflection as he moved to violently knee Shaw in the groin.

Shaw's reflexes kicked in, and he automatically tried to move his 'produce department' out of the way. This brought his bare bottom against the surprisingly cold steel of the gurney behind him, and his face into abrupt contact with Chuck's shoulder, bending his nose painfully.

"Aaaaaaaaargh!" he said, succinctly as he collapsed to the floor in pain, the knife wound still reminding Shaw not to annoy certain government agents. Ever again.

Chuck ignored for the moment, the display of Shaw writhing on the floor, his hospital gown now riding above his midriff as he lay half curled up, feet first toward the students. "That is the classic autonomic, or reflex action learned in childhood. The pathways form due to repeated actions, and it becomes an instinctive reflex. In this case to protect himself from perceived pain... here we go" Chuck said as he assisted a grey and clammy Shaw back onto his feet.

"But..." Chuck continued to his audience "...if we block the nerve impulses with a simple clamp..." Chuck showed the slightly medieval looking shiny implement to the students, who recognised it as a Brooks number five clamp "...here, between C three and C four..." Shaw hissed as the stainless steel teeth bit deep into his flesh, and then stood straighter "... we have blocked the path way _from_ the brain, and so... You girlfriend grabbing, backstabbing traitorous son of a bi..."

This time, Chuck's knee made full contact into Shaw's lower abdomen, about as low on the abdomen as it is possible to go before you only find fresh air. There was a solid 'thudding' sound. It was like hitting a lump of wood. Shaw made no movement, despite his eyes following Chuck's knee trajectory in a kind of horrified fascination. It was as if he was a cardboard cut-out. Afterwards, his right eye twitched slightly as a single tear escaped, down his now distinctly greenish face.

Chuck moved his hand back to the clamp in the back of Shaw's neck, but did not remove it. Yet. "You will recall from your notes that the Brooks clamp only blocks impulses _from_ the brain, blocking the reflex. Pathways _to_ the brain are still functional. If we remove the clamp, the overload will cause a momentary loss of conscious control..." Chuck removed the clamp with a flourish, as Shaw moaned on his way back down to the floor again.

Chuck signalled for Skip and Fernando to remove the slowly rocking and moaning Shaw clutching his privates from the presentation stage. They would need to return after the lecture with a mop. Apparently he'd managed to dislodge a kidney stone.

-o0o-

As the last students were leaving, the man with the valise approached Chuck.

"Herr Von Bartowski. My name is Max Grunka..."

Chuck interrupted him "Its just Bartowski. We stopped using the Von after my..." Chuck didn't want to remember his father.

"Werry vell, Doctor Bartowski..." he managed, somehow, to emphasis the missing _Von_. "...My name is Max Grunka. I represent your late father's estate" Grunka said as he handed over the will of the late Baron Stephen Von Bartowski.

Chuck glanced at it in mild disinterest, before re-reading it with raised eyebrows...

-o0o-

Chuck and his sister had grown up frugal. Both of them doctors now, Chuck had put himself through med school by working at a Buy More, of all places, just to survive. Ellie had even worked in a hospital flower shop at one stage, just to pay the bills when she went through.

Suddenly, he was now rich. A title and lands in someplace that sounded like it belonged in a vampire movie. One of the good, gruesome ones, not some glittering teeny-bop one.

Eight hundred and seventy seven million... even in today's depressed and pressured market economy, that was nothing to sneeze at.

As Chuck sat, alone in his apartment that night, he manfully resisted for ten minutes the urge for paraphrase Austin Powers...

"Eight hundred and seventy seven _meeelion_ dollars... Mwaaahahaha!"

Except, for inheritance purposes, he would have to take possession of his fathers lands in far off Transburbankylvania.

_Oh, alright. One more impersonation couldn't hurt..._

"Yonder lies the kassle of my fadda"

Chuck wondered if there was a castle... how cool would that be? Sitting in his own castle, overlooking his palatial grounds, skeet shooting his peasants, having smoked kippers for breakfast... what are kippers, and how does one smoke them?

In some ways, Chuck was glad his fiancée was out at a charity event. The Larkin foundation or something. She came from money. That wasn't why he was going to marry her, but she had a different outlook on life. Chuck was rather enjoying the discovery he was rich, by himself.

Chuck's fiancée was rather a 'take charge' woman. He loved her enough to love her little quirks. The 'chastity before marriage' was one of the bigger ones. She was determined to make Chuck a better man. Her current plan involved more Descartes and Spinoza, and less Star Wars and Star Trek.

Chuck wasn't all that certain how he'd gotten engaged to her. It just sort of happened... she was certainly a 'mover and shaker.' She didn't fall into what Chuck thought of as his type, when he had a 'type.' Frankly women of Carina's calibre gave him the hee-bee-gee-bees. One day all was normal, and then she fell into his life. Somehow they'd gotten engaged...

Chuck's sister and brother-in-law were famously in Africa somewhere, incommunicado. Saving lives without borders. The few times she'd contacted him on satellite phones, that frankly should work better considering this was the twenty first century, the conditions sounded brutal. But she loved Devon, and this was what her husband wanted to do.

-o0o-

**AN2 –** If you enjoyed this chapter, may I modestly suggest another story of mine, **Chuck vs The Gruesome Death Of Shaw**? You may see some similarities.


	2. What Knockers

-o0o-

_**A curious thing**__. This story has had the _least_ number of hits of any of mine since my first story. But more reviews than that number would have indicated. And the PMs and reviews guessing the identities of the regular cast members have been pretty close. Apparently, great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ._

As of 13.09.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**Chapter Two.**

-o0o-

Carina Hansen-Miller bade her fiancée farewell at the airport.

Chuck had met Carina at some boring fundraiser that the university (and Ellie) had _insisted_ Chuck, make that Doctor Charles I. Bartowski, attend. He'd turned around and suddenly Carina was in his face. He'd apologised profusely if stammeringly, and she put him at ease. They talked for ages, but before he worked up the nerve to ask her out, she disappeared mysteriously. And then, she turned up at his apartment the next morning, dragging him out to breakfast. He'd never gotten around to asking her out, let alone giving her his address. All of a sudden, Carina was in his life.

Owing to a prior engagement, with the Larkin's again, this time at their Connecticut estate for the week. Carina declared it would take too long to go through security 'just to see him off' so they said their farewells while on the white zone. A voice over the PA reminded them that there was '_no parking in the _red_ zone_,' as her driver, a large man named Mike, fussed over the surface sheen of the Rolls.

"Oh, my darling Charles" she breathed, leaning towards him. Carina was currently back to being a red head, having a penchant for changing her hair color with alarming frequency. Chuck never found a way to tell her he thought she looked better as a strawberry blonde, she was convinced he _loved_ brunette.

"Carina..." Chuck uttered, clutching her in his arms, holding her close.

"Taffeta, darling..."

"...Taffeta..." Chuck responded, his face betraying the confusion he hoped his voice did not. Perhaps that was what the cool kids were saying these days...

"The dress..." she explained to him, patiently "...It's taffeta. It crushes so easily."

He let go abruptly. He added a one foot clearance, to be safe.

"Oh, my darling..." she said.

"My sweet..."

"Promise me you'll write?" she demanded, coquettishly.

"Every day, my angel..." he leant in to...

"The lips! Not on the lips! I'm going to that tiresome thing at the Larkin's, I don't want to ruin my lipstick."

She couldn't hug him "Taffeta." Again.

He moved to kiss her forehead. As he held her head to kiss her, she screamed

"The hair! The hair... sorry."

They rubbed elbows affectionately as another recording reminded them that '_There is no parking in the _white_ zone, the red zone is for loading and unloading only.'_

-o0o-

The flights were long, and tiring. It required three different planes of varying and increasing ages, allowable amounts of visible duct-tape and levels of livestock allowed in the passenger section to reach Transburbankylvania. On one (it felt like more) of the legs, an older couple kept Chuck awake with their arguing over the apparently constant nocturnal behaviour of their twenty something-stay-at-home son, Bruce or something. Chuck tried to tune them out.

It was dark and foggy as Chuck left the structure that proclaimed it's self to be an arrivals and/or departures building. He had been the only human to deplane, and was feeling a little freaked out. It seemed the officials here weren't sure what to do with someone coming _into_ Transburbankylvania. He'd received some odd looks.

The goats (or sheep, it was difficult to tell) had received a warmer welcome. The chickens were collected by two peasants and loaded into a horse drawn white (once upon a time) Mitsubishi van, with the name 'Loretta' spelled out somewhat squarishly in red electrician's tape. The misspelled "Jeffster! Wold Tour" was below that.

Chuck stood waiting in the foggy night. There was supposed to be someone picking him up, but he couldn't see anyone.

The dank gloom made the inevitable _'clop... slither...thud... clop... slither... thud' _sound eerily creepy. Well, actually, more eerily creepy than it would normally sound, assuming that inevitable creepy sounds like that had a 'normal' setting.

Chuck turned to the sound. A horribly disfigured shape hobbled slowly towards him using what seemed to be a too small cane. The figure looked up at Chuck, hunched over. The lightning and thunder lit his beard in evil flickers.

"Von Bartowski?" the bearded troll croaked before coughing disgustingly. "Sorry..." he continued in a more normal voice "...I picked up a summer cold. Been trying to shake it off."

Chuck looked down at the wizened creature "Ahhh, its just Bartowski. I don't use the... nevermind. Are you alright? I don't mean to pry, but I am a rather brilliant surgeon. I could help..." Chuck gestured to the figure's hunched over back.

"Oh, that. No, I hurt my back playing Wii tennis. And this stupid cane keeps collapsing past the stop. I'm Morgan. I'm here to take you to Castle." Morgan threw back the hood of his hoodie.

"Morgan... are you sure? They told me it was Martin..."

"Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?" Morgan said as he reached for Chuck's luggage. After testing the weights, he picked the smallest bag up. "Walk this way" he intoned in a croak before coughing again. The hoodie fell forward.

'_Well, if I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the Vaseline'_ thought Chuck, the old med school line automatically popping into his head.

After picking up the larger remaining case, Chuck discovered he was walking _that_ way. Stupid text books. They weighed too much.

-o0o-

"A Toyota Yaris?" Chuck asked incredulously. It looked like it was a second-hand Nerd Herder. Where was the Lotus, or the Porsche?

Morgan shrugged "It's a second-hand Nerd Herder. They were practically _giving_ them away. Welcome to Transburbankylvania, Chuck."

Chuck blinked at that. Charles. He was supposed to be "Charles, actually."

"Whatever you say, Chuck." Morgan said as he climbed painfully into the driver's seat "You'll be more comfortable in the back."

Not much choice, seeing as how the front passenger seat was missing. As was the passenger door. Chuck thought briefly of Bond-esq ejection seats, before shaking his head. Nah.

Chuck heaved his case into the 'Tylenol-on-wheels'. He was rewarded with a distinctly feminine "Oof" from the interior.

Chuck stuck his head in the door, and peered inside. At that moment, the world seemed to retract to a black-and-white version.

Except for dazzling blue.

And golden yellow.

The owner of said dazzling blue and golden yellow was wearing a simple peasant dress that was still in the black-and-white fringe of the universe. The invisible wind machine emphasised the soft just-out-of-focus-and-slow-motion effect Chuck's brain was filtering.

"Hello" said the vision before him, after she shoved the text book filled case off her body.

"Um..." the effort of this clever conversation filler cost Chuck to loose control of one foot (the one on the dirt, not the one inside where _she_ was...) and send it drifting in space/time seeking... something...

"Chuck, this is Sarah" said Morgan "Sarah, Chuck. Herr Grunka thought you might need an assistant." Morgan smiled at Chuck as Chuck managed to regain control of his errant leg, only to find one of his hands was now wandering off by itself. He returned the hand back to the door frame from his hair where it had tried to twist some of the larger animal shapes into a knot.

Morgan gave no warning as he drove the below reasonably priced car as if he was trying to set a lap record. Chuck fell on top of Sarah with all the grace he could muster in a spit second, while being distracted by said vision since he was still quite firmly in 'slow motion, wind machine' mode.

In other words, none.

Her "Oof" was released once again. This time into Chuck's right ear. The frenzy of goose-bumps this induced left him shivering.

Chuck clambered off Sarah apologising continually, and only finding his hand near inappropriate locations three times. Her left breas... upper chest-al area, twice.

He sat resolutely still "Sorry. I wasn't thinking I'd be going for a roll in the hay bale on wheels tonigh...Um. Oh God. Not that's not what I meant..." Chuck said as he curled himself into as close a foetal position as he could while sitting up.

Sarah, apparently determined to be polite, said "Chuck, huh? I didn't think anyone still named their kids Chuck."

"Um..." Chuck was put off by the fact she still wanted to talk to him after what he'd just done to her, albeit by accident.

"I think his parents were sadists. I got found by circus freaks..." came Morgan's voice from the front. His croaky voice gave the impression he wasn't joking. "But, they raised me as one of their own..." Morgan muttered to himself.

Chuck spread his hands at Sarah. In lieu of a witty rejoinder from himself, it wasn't too bad, actually. And amazingly, Sarah smiled at him, nudging his shoulder with hers.

He thought of adding that that was from Batman, but wasn't sure... was that the Danny DeVito Penguin one? 'Cause that would make things better...

As they past through the foggy town, Sarah saw a teenager in a hoodie. "Team Jacob" printed across the front in fluoro pink.

"Werewolf..." she growled.

"Where wolf?" asked a perplexed Chuck. All he could see was some kid in a hoodie.

"There wolf" pointed Morgan "There Castle" pointing again, this time straight ahead.

"Why are you talking like that?" Chuck wanted to know

"Thought you wanted to. Suit yourself then."

"And what castle? All I can see is a parking lot... Is that an Orange Orange?" Chuck muttered, mainly to himself.

It actually _was_ an Orange Orange. Chuck thought the chain had all folded some time ago. Morgan drove the buzz-box around the back, to the loading dock.

"I thought we were heading to the castle?" asked Chuck when the engine shut off.

"This _is_ Castle. Your father bought an old cold war underground complex" Sarah told him "Some of his ... _experiments_" she intimated "needed a level of security..."

Poof! There went the palatial grounds...

A bunker. He'd inherited a bunker... Great! _I _always_ wanted to live in a bunker._

As Chuck climbed out, Morgan went up to the loading dock doors, and clanged on the door with one of a pair of soviet era tank turret ring bearings, from an MBT T72 - the coolest one, hung on the door with the cheerful sign "Please knock."

As Chuck was gallantly assisting Sarah out of the little one-doored death trap, the clanging din Morgan had created distracted Chuck. Chuck looked over, more than a little grateful for the distraction, since Sarah had leant over to egress the Yaris. Her top had fallen open a little... just a little...

_Morgan! Look at Morgan you idiot! _It was no use. His own brain betrayed him anyway.

"What knockers!" fell from his lips. Sarah moved a little in his hands. He realised what (and who) he was holding.

As well as what he'd just said...

His head spun around, almost giving himself whiplash, only to have his whole face now press into her breas... upper chest-al protuberan... areas. _Oh. Dear. God... _He eased her to the ground as quickly as it was possible without _actually_ dropping her.

She took one look at his horrified expression and red, nudging dangerously close to puce, complexion. She grinned full of angelic, if impish, innocence.

"Why, _thank _you doctor."

"Er... um... NO!... I meant... I wasn't..."

The huge door creaked open. _WD40_ thought Chuck, desperately trying to distract himself from further foot in mouth around this woman _Gotta get some WD40._

There was a woman in her fifties standing severely just inside the door. She rather reminded Chuck of the woman who play the mother in one of the Terminator films.

"I am Mary Fros... Frau Raureif" she announced in a grave monotone.

The silence invited crickets to chirrup. Instead there was a 'clip clop' sound from the parking lot, magnifying the silence, somehow.

By one of those amazing coincidences that seemed to have begun to gravitate around Chuck, Transburbankylvania or the combination of the two just recently, a pair of local peasants were using a pair of horses to pull a white Mitsubishi van past the dock.

Morgan announced "I'll... I'll um, just go and move the Herder, over next to that blue car."

The horses reacted as if they'd heard something horrifying. While 'Loretta,' assuming that was the Mitsubishi's name, didn't pop a wheelie, the two unfortunates contained fell backwards inside the van as the horses bolted in fear. There was a high pitched "Eeeeee eeeee eeeeee!" from, presumably, the female occupant. The chickens seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Frau Raureif ignored the noises, as if they were a common occurrence. "I am the housekeeper" she announced.

Chuck and Sarah returned their attention from the horses to Frau Raureif.

"Good evening Frau Rau... Mary, I am Dr Bartowski. This is my assistant, Sarah. Morgan?" Chuck called "Once you've done, don't scratch the blue car..." in the distance, the horses again shied from something unspeakable "Bring the bags" Chuck continued, ignoring the faint cry of "Jefferski... make it stop..." fade off into the distance.

"Your rooms have been prepared." The housekeeper said in her dead tone "Follow me."

-o0o-

**AN** According to Google Translator (I haff no Cherman), 'Raureif' is German for frost.

-o0o-


	3. Put The Candle Beck

-o0o-

As of 20.09.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**Chapter Three.**

-o0o

As far as bunkers go, not that Chuck had a lot of experience in these things, it was actually pretty nice.

Yes, there were a lot of concrete walls, but had it have actually been a real castle then there would have been stone walls. In fact had it have been a real castle, it would probably have been quite draughty.

So, aside from the lack of a view, not that much different really. The décor was closer to the twenty first than twelfth century. The framed paintings and photos made up for the lack of windows anyway.

Chuck knew from growing up with his sister, that there'd definitely been a woman's touch in the interior. OK, so the staircases were metal, and went _down_ rather than up... but still...

Frau Raureif's warning that 'the staircases...can be treacherous' did cause Chuck to have a slight hesitation at the top of the stairs, accompanied with a pile up of Sarah and then Morgan bumping into him.

Chuck was rather proud he didn't 'pinwheel' at the top of the stairs. Having Sarah press her body length against him had distracted him for some reason.

The apartments were tastefully laid out. Frau Rau... Mary led Chuck to his.

"These were you fathers rooms" she intoned. "This was Stephe... your _father's_ medical library..." her hand gestured to the wall of text books. Chuck glanced around. The bed was more inviting. He'd had an ... interesting day. Couple of days, in fact. The text collection looked pretty normal.

Normal.

He went to the bookcases and _looked_ at the titles...

"Ummm... where is my fathers private library?" he asked Frau Raureif, still running his finger along the tittles. He picked one at random, Wallace and Grommet's "Exploratory Surgery For Do..." a stain covering the rest of the title.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, these books are perfectly normal. Any doctor would have them. What I don't see are the ones pertaining to his ... speciality" Chuck closed the hardcover with a flourish, ignoring the puff of dust trying to now make him sneeze.

"This is the only library _I _know of."

Chuck eyed her carefully. "Very well then. I think I'll turn in... Oh, Frau... Mary, one thing. Who owns that blue car..."

From the ventilation system came the distant sound of a pair of horses who had just had the same horrifying thought, along with a faint cry of "Lesterovitch... come back..."

"... parked outside?"

"It is mine. Would the doctor like a little brandy before retiring?"

Chuck shook his head "No thank you."

She turned to leave, but then...

"Some warm milk? Oval..."

"Good night, Frau Rau...oovf"

She only winced a little. Chuck busied himself with his luggage. After a moment, he noticed Frau Raureif was still in the room. She finished straightened the photo of his father on the mantle piece and left.

-o0o-

Chuck was stuck at the nerd desk at the Buy More. Again.

"No no no"

The dead end job had been like quicksand. Once the staff had discovered Chuck knew what he was doing, all the jobs ended up in his pile. The two slackers claimed they were 'Arteests' and found a way to wiggle out of everything. The boss never set foot on the sales floor, and just yelled at everybody. Especially Chuck, since he actually did his job, along with a lot of the others...

"No no. Don't give me tha..."

The sight of a Beastmaster barbeque rolling towards him, filled him with a nameless dread...

"Chuck! Wake up."

Something was shaking him. He opened his eyes, only to desperately need to shut them again, very quickly.

Possibly the finest cleavage in human history was, well 'wobbling' was quite literally the only thing he could think of, right in front of him as Sarah shook him awake.

"Gnnahra?" seemed to be the safest thing to say.

"Chuck, you were having a nightmare"

"Not sure if it hasn't stopped yet" he muttered, facing away from... nope, she drew him in, like a moth to a flame. At least she'd straightened up, and he was able to look at her eyes.

Which were just as hypnotic, but at least he had a less... drooling reaction. He suspected goggle eyed may have been a risk too. Chuck was pretty sure he'd have some funny dreams for the next few nights as well.

She was still standing beside his bed, clad in something that should have still been in the 'sealed section' at the back of a Victoria's Secrets catalogue. He had a glimpse of some sort of hot pant-y shorts _just_ below the sheer nightgown. Considering she was wearing clothes, there was an awful lot of flesh visible. She seemed very fit.

Chuck ran through the wrist bones mentally to stave off another 'slow motion' attack.

_Tedium traps captivating hamsters. Some loon tried pis..._

"Sorry?" she seemed amused.

Great, he'd 'amused' a pretty girl. That always works well. "Umm.."

"You said something about a hamster. Was that what the nightmare was abou...?"

_And now she thinks I have nightmares about..._

"No!, no, sorry. Trying to clear my mind. So, do you often creep around underground bunkers at two o'clock in the morning, looking for nightmare victims to save?" Chuck asked as he got up.

"I was woken up by the music"

Chuck noticed that there was indeed music playing faintly. "Well, I'm not going to get any sleep now. Let's go find it."

Chuck watched her bare legs pad away from him. Shaking off the incipient 'slow motion' phase, he asked her "Can you get that robe please?"

She looked at him in his PJs. "You're not that cold, are you?"

"It's not for me" he said, trying (badly) not to look at her legs.

He'd managed to puzzle her, until she looked down at what she was wearing.

"Oh... sorry" she said, as she writhed into the robe. Chuck was now of the opinion that a white towelling robe was the sexiest ensemble ever worn. _How does she do it? Two in the morning, and she's a glamazon_. Chuck glanced at his reflection, and realised his 'bed head' would give Doc Brown from 'Back to the future' a run for his money.

"For the record, next time I have a nightmare, you have my permission to wake me up again" he muttered, trying to flatten the worst of it.

"It's louder over here"

"Mmm?"

"The music. It's louder..."

He realised he could hear the music a little clearer "You're right it sound like it's coming..."

"...from behind the book case" she agreed with him.

Chuck thought for a moment. He and Ellie had once killed an afternoon in some demonstration suburb, getting decoration ideas. In one place, the estate people had the doorway to the garage made up to look like a fake bookcase.

Chuck had always loved the idea of a secret passageway... could it be...? then, that would mean...

"Where is it?"

"Where's what?" Sarah asked.

"The trigger. There should be a hidden devise for the ... hello..."

Grey's Anatomy stood taller that all the others in that shelf.

Yank!

He put the book back, a little disappointed.

Chuck looked at the next case, studying the books. It was darker here, further from the light.

Chuck asked Sarah "Can you turn that light onnnrrrrrrggggghhhhh!" concluding with a slight girlish cry as he clung onto the now moving bookcase for dear life.

Sarah looked over at a now wooden panel, where the bookcase (and Chuck) formerly were. His voice came from behind the bookcase, slightly muffled.

"Turn. The. Light. Off."

She watched this time as she turned the wall mounted lamp off. The whole panel pivoted around it's middle. Chuck carried along with it. He had time for one mildly panicked glance at her, before continuing all the way round and back to the other side of the passage.

After a moment, he called again.

"OK, I think I have it figured out. You switch the light, and I'll block the case with my body."

She switched the light on again. Again she had a brief glance of Chuck as he swung past her.

She winced at the solid, and at the same time distinctly squishy, thud that followed.

After a small delay, there came the voice of someone holding back a lot of pain. All she could see of him from where she stood were his fingers as they twitched and then gripped the edge of the case.

"Now listen very carefully. What ever you do, don't touch the lamp. With all your might, shove on the other side of the bookcase. Is that perfectly clear?"

She nodded. "Ready Chuck?"

She took his pained silence as agreement. She pushed. After an initial resistance, the case spun easily.

Chuck fell free from the grip of the bookcase. He lay panting on the rug before saying "Thanks Sarah."

Her reply was curiously muffled "Turn. The. Light. Off."

He realised he was alone. Think about this... how about if...

He turned the light off, and as the case swung, he turned it on again. The case stopped in the open position. Finally.

He joined Sarah in the passage revealed now. "Well, the music's coming from down there."

She grinned at him "Let's go Chuck"

"Um, Sarah? Can you..." he made dressing gown movements, before heading down the corridor.

She grinned to herself as she tightened up the sash on the robe. _A gentleman. Must be the last one._

-o0o-

This section of Castle had failed to have the woman's touch.

Or a cleaning rags either. Chuck calmly removed the cobweb from his hair, while Sarah giggled at him. It hadn't been _that_ much frantic flailing, really.

As they descended, they kept close to each other.

That was when Morgan scared Chuck out of five years growth, not a bad thing considering his current height.

Anyway, Sarah compensated by grabbing Chuck from behind. Chuck had the sensation of someone firm and athletic, yet at the same time warm and ... squishy. Delightfully squishy to be honest, press up against him.

"Martin!"

"Charles!" Morgan ceased his impromptu, and _very _sudden, singing. It was something about a girl in a short skirt, and a long... nevermind.

"Chuck" corrected Sarah.

"And Morgan" Chuck realised. "What.. what are you doing here?"

"Same as you, I guess. I followed the music I heard though the dumbwaiter."

"Nice hunch... Look! There's a light from under that door." Chuck concluded in a loud whisper.

"Wait, it could be dangerous" Morgan instantly found a position behind the other two "You go first."

Quietly and stealthily, until the door in desperate need of WD40 announced their presence, they crept into the next room.

"Aren't there any lights in this place?" Chuck peered into the gloomy room.

"Two nasty looking switches over there." Morgan pointed "But I'm not going to be the first" he muttered.

After an initial arc caused Chuck to jump three feet back, he glared at Morgan, and tried the second switch.

"What a dump!"

"Oh, I don't know, a lick of paint, some scatter cushions, a little..." Morgan petered off at Chuck's continued glare. He still wasn't happy about the switches.

Morgan raced ahead to power down the iPod speaker, and picked up the huge cigar that still smouldered in the ashtray "A Costa Gravan number 7. Pre-revolutionary." He judged. His task was made easier by the band still in place on the cigar.

"What is this place?" Chuck wanted to know.

"Computer room?" offered Morgan. There were at least 5 old Apple IIs in various staged of decay on the shelves. Text books of various disciplines and note books filled the rest of the room.

"Looks like an abandoned library" suggested Sarah.

"Librar... it is! This is my father's private library!" he cried as he whirled around in delight, ignoring the expressions of the other two at the sound of a column of the precariously stacked pile of books signifying a change in status to '_formerly_ precariously stacked.'

-o0o-


	4. Schwanstüker

-o0o-

As of 26.09.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al. The corkscrew gag is from Billy Connolly.

**Chapter Four.**

-o0o

"**It. Could. Work!"** cried Chuck in a moment of epiphany.

Sarah and Morgan jerked up from their 'resting their eyes' position face down on the desk. "Mmmghah?" was probably the most coherent of the replies. Morgan's mumble seemed to enquire about a pony.

Chuck hadn't pulled an all-nighter like this since med school. How could he not? This was fascinating!

And it explained all the old computers and electronics texts.

He'd been... the whole _world_ had been wrong about his father! The man had been a genius.

Yes, he'd dug up dead bodies.

But that was perfectly understandable. Now.

It'd never about reanimating a dead body. Dead was dead. Any idea of bringing a corpse back was just silly. No, what his father had been doing was _studying_ brains.

Normally, these could be found via organ donors, the supply jokingly referred to by generations of med students as 'the brain repository.'

And his father had done that. But the quantity needed had outstripped the local supply. So his father had needed to be ... creative.

And it was worth it! The whole idea had been to install a link between the human mind and computers. And Chuck now knew that with today's advances in computers, instead of a cable linking the patient to a computer, whole gigabytes were available on tiny chips. The biggest problem was the connection to the chip, rather than the microprocessor itself.

This was _The Matrix,_ or even closer _Jonny Mnemonic_. Chuck could see his father's vision, need to speak French, or Arabic? Need to fly a plane? Learn Kung Fu? Buy a chip and plug it in.

His father's problem was he'd been too early. All he needed was a one twenty eight gig processor... twenty years ago, Chuck doubted even desktops had processors that size.

Chuck had spent the night racing from note book to note book, from discovery to discovery. This was how his father had done it. He never noticed when the other two fell asleep.

His cry woke them up. They looked at each other, then at Chuck. Morgan was puzzled. Sarah looked _proud_ of him. He felt good at that look, as he tried to explain the concept.

"So... any information, can be loaded into the brain?" Morgan wanted to know.

"Yes! A foreign language, a built in museum tour guide... just about anything."

"What about physical skills?" Sarah asked quietly.

"Yes!" enthused Chuck, missing her attitude change "There was actually a whole section on recorded martial arts moves. Morgan, imagine not just playing Call of Duty, but actually _being_ in the game... forget the holodeck on the Enterprise, this will ..." he paused, realising the implications "This will change everything. Everything" he said, looking into the future.

Part of him realised that Sarah's expression had changed, but when he looked at her, she smiled brilliantly at him. Chuck put it down to his being tired.

That was why he didn't notice the hand gun she pointed at him. Morgan on the other hand, did.

"Um, Chuck? Don't panic" Morgan advised, alternating looks between Sarah, her gun and Chuck. It sounded like he wasn't following his own advice.

"What?"

"I said, don't p..."

But Sarah interrupted Morgan.

"Chuck, I'm sorry, but don't freak o..." but she was too late.

"Waaah! Is that a g...ow!" Chuck concluded as he sat down unexpectedly. From this new position of power negotiation he asked, and fairly calmly too, he thought "What's... what's going on?"

Sarah's gun (and just _where_ had she hidden it part of Chuck both did and didn't want to know) followed Chuck down to the floor "Chuck, I'm with the Transburbanklvanian Intelligence Committee of State Security" she ignored Morgan say the acronym "We're the good guys, OK? But your father's work, it was financed by our agency."

Morgan said the acronym again. Chuck was baffled "Morgan, why do you keep saying titty?"

"T.I.T.T.Y. that's the Transburbanklvanian Intelligence Committee of State Security, Chuck"

"Titty?"

"Spell it in Trasburbanklvanian, Chuck."

Chuck rested his head gently on the concrete floor. The other two winced at the sound his skull made on the first bounce.

"Sarah?" he asked the ceiling.

"Chuck? Are you OK?"

"Sarah, are you an agent of T.I.T.T.Y.?" Chuck wanted to know of the ceiling.

"Well, yes, but ..."

"Does that make my father a T.I.T.T.Y. man too?" he asked in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, which was impressive, considering the nature and contents of the request.

"No Chuck. Your father was a brilliant man, from what I've read. He was a civilian asset, his handler was an agent of ours code-named Frost."

Chuck raised his head to look at her "So... What happens now?"

"Well, you carry on with your father's work. You make it sound like it will work. We have a ... a volunteer for when you think you're ready."

Chuck rested he head back on the concrete, only bouncing once this time, and asked the ceiling again "Sarah, are you and your T.I.T.T.Y. friends asking me to install government secrets into someone's head?"

She stashed her gun, somewhere, and went over to Chuck, holding her hand out to him to help him up "That's not how I would have phrased it, but ... yes."

"OK, if you don't mind, I'm going to pass out now"

"Chuck?" she sounded worried.

"I said I'm going to ... oh nevermi..." he passed out testily.

-o0o-

Something smelled good.

Two somethings in fact. Or more specifically, a food something, and a person something. The food something was "Blueberry pancakes... Sarah?" Chuck correctly identified both somethings as he sat up. Bed, he was in his bed. OK...

"Morning Chuck" said Sarah with a brilliant smile, moving the tray from her lap to his. She was still dressed as she was last ... earlier this morning. Sheer was the appropriate word. Chuck tried not to notice the warmth the tray retained from her legs.

Chuck ran through the sequence of event from last ni... this morning. His father wasn't a grave robber, well, yes he was but... and ... gun! Sarah had pointed a gun at him. Sarah was a ...

"Sarah?"

She tilted her head, and shared an amused smile with him "Yes Chuck?"

"Did you point a gun at me earlier?"

She nodded. Her smile continued to show amusement.

"So, you're an agent of..." her face told him not to say the hideous acronym "...an agent. A spy?"

"Yes. Have a pancake."

"B..." but she got a fold of pancake in there before he could say anything. Thus silenced, she took the opportunity to direct the conversation.

"Chuck, I'm sorry it happened this way, but what your father did was very important. And you, you Chuck, can make it work."

Chuck rather felt he'd just about do anything for her when she smiled like that. She was going to be trouble.

"I suppose I don't have much choice now, do I? Not since I told you how it works..."

Her smile told him... no it _asked_ him to 'trust me.' Chuck knew at that moment he'd do something stupid just to have a repeat of that smile.

"So Chuck, what do you need?"

"I suppose we need to have a look in dear old dad's lab. See what's on the slab..."

She tilted her head a little. It was adorable.

"OK, when we get a chance, we need to work on teaching you some useless references..." he said.

-o0o-

The first thing he noticed was that Sarah was smart. Python and Star Trek might fly over her head, but she was smart.

Morgan, on the other hand... Chuck suspected that Morgan's fifth class report card had read something like 'Means well. Tries hard.'

Frau Raureif turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a bit of a task master. She knew where everything went, and would bark orders (there was no other possible description) mostly at Morgan. It was hard work, but they got the lab suitable for human experimentation.

More times than he could count, Chuck found Sarah working, cleaning or lifting beside him. And she would always smile for him. She could be covered in dirt and grime, but that smile would light her up as the most beautiful person he'd ever imagined.

And somehow in the past few days, Chuck's personal space had shrunk in the wash somehow when it came to Sarah. They would brush past each other as often as they could. She was like a drug of addiction. He would resolve to be cool, calm and collected. Then she would rest her hand on his arm, or squeeze past him when there was (and even more fun, wasn't) room... and he would look forward to her next encounter with cold kidneys and weak knees.

On the fourth morning while the trio ate breakfast, Sarah brought the real world back with a thud. She placed a folder on the table.

"Chuck? I had word last night. The project ….. has begun. We have a volunteer ready. One of our G.R.U.N.T. agents was injured. It's time Chuck."

Chuck tried to raise one eyebrow (a feat he never mastered) at Sarah "Grunt?"

"National Agency for Transburbanklvainian Safety" said Sarah with a pretty good imitation of a straight face.

"Ok, let's have a look at his file" said Chuck. Sarah slid over to sit next to Chuck as he read. Her thigh running parallel to his was a cause for him to keep re-reading whole paragraphs. She seemed to like wearing short shorts at breakfast. Either that or she really enjoyed watching him almost have a coronary each morning.

The project name gave Chuck pause.

"Schwanstüker?" mused Chuck "My German may be a little rusty, but doesn't that mean…."

"Giant peni…." Morgan tried to clarify.

"Yes thankyou" Chuck rode over the top of Morgan.

"Maybe he's popular with the ladie…." tried the man with foot-in-beard.

Sarah cut over Morgan this time "So tonight, you and Morgan will have to pick up ….. Major Coburn. I understand that because of his head trauma, he'll be in a medical coma."

"A brain! I mutht find a brain for my maath…ta" cried Morgan gleefully as he cleared the breakfast things.

-o0o-

The drop off for operation Schwanstüker was outside the village's small cemetery. As the discrete large green military trucks roared off, leaving Chuck and Morgan on the side of the road, along with a coffin-esq container that kept going 'Ping!'

On a dark, moonless night. And it was cold too.

_Ping!_

"So, we have a former government secret underground bunker…."

_Ping!_

"….with a secret laboratory, and no vehicle larger than a second hand nerd….."

_Ping!_

"…herder. That is getting _really_ annoying! What, no black ex-spy…."

_Ping!_

"….. Suburbans?" Chuck wanted to know.

Morgan assisted Chuck pushing the wooden cart along the dark street. "Sorry Chuck the…."

_Ping!_

"….import duty on larger cars is pretty big here in Transburbankly…"

_Ping!_

…vania. Can we maybe turn that down a tad?"

"Yeah, you got a screwdriver or a pocket….."

_Ping!_

"…knife? Or a hammer?"

Morgan handed over his Swiss Army Knife.

Chuck wonderer briefly at the Swiss Army. On the battle field, did they advance, corkscrews out, twisting them menacingly? Opening up the Phillips head, Chuck lifted the tarp and studied the blinking lights and electronic panel.

_Ping!_

After three 'Ping!'s Chuck solved the problem by shoving a handful of mud into the speaker grill, and grinding it home.

He looked at the dirt on his surgeons hands "What a filthy dirty job."

Morgan was always a glass half full kind of guy "Cheer up, at least it isn't rain….."

The rain set in with no fuss, and in a quality that let you know it wasn't going to give up any time soon.

"…ing."

Chuck glared at Morgan as they trudged through the village and the rain. The rain washed the mud out of the speaker.

Which turned out to be a useful thing when the village cop stopped Chuck, wanting to know who he was, as he knew everyone in town.

_Ping!_

Chuck explained that the cart was full of computer equipment.

_Ping!_

Sarah found them in the lab shortly after they got back.

"Chuck! You're chilled to the bone!"

Morgan said he was too, but Chuck and Sarah didn't seem to hear him.

-o0o-

Coburn was on the slab, wired and tubed up. A different, and quieter machine went ping. Coburn was a big man.

"Patient is a male, mid forties and in excellent physical condition" Chuck broke off his narration to ask Sarah "Military?" she nodded. She found it cute that he was such a nerd. Dictating his notes into a phone to have his computer transcribe them for his records later.

"Patient has been prepped for surgery. All we need now is the implant. Morgan? You know what to do."

-o0o-

Morgan entered the clean room off to the side of the lab. On the white shelves were sterile nano-assemblers in jars of saline, the housings for the mission chips, and the chips themselves currently plugged into a bank of computers, each with the skill sets sequencing through on the screens.

Archery. Bomb making. Fencing. Sniper. Clog dancing. Alpine skiing. Recipe for quiche.

Morgan put the jar of nano-assembler and the housing on the cart. He pulled the first chip out of the bank of sockets. The screen for that chip flashed red.

Morgan knew that flashing red was a bad thing.

"Casing Join Abnormal" kept flashing and scrolling across the screen. Morgan looked at the chip and put it back into the socket. The flashing stopped.

Morgan relaxed. The chip was fine. It must be a warning that the chip was out of its socket, that's all. Morgan put it on the cart and rejoined the others in the lab, leaving the screen to scroll / blink in red by itself.

"_...Casing Join Abnormal ...Join Abnormal Casing_ ... _Abnormal Casing Join..."_

-o0o-


	5. Said A Give

-o0o-

As of 04.10.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**Chapter Five.**

-o0o

"One point twenty one giga-watts! Great Scott!"

"Morgan, that's what we need to power the nano-assemblers. None of that will reach the patient, that's why we have all these banks of capacitors and staging ladders" Chuck explained, gesturing at the banks of massive electronic boxes impressively covered in 1950s style analogue dials and Bakelite knobs "So, in order to harness that much power, we can either black out all of Transburbanklyvanina, and probably a fair chunk of Glendalestan as well, or..." Chuck pointed at the lightning rod now doing its job to emphasis Chuck's point.

Morgan stood there in his yellow rain gear, looking like a forlorn, if bearded, school kid that had missed his bus on his first day of school. The day it rained. He held the heavy duty jumper cables, looking at the scoring and pitting at the ends. "Isn't there a possibility of electrocution?" Morgan asked in a voice pitched an octave higher than normal.

"Yes. Be careful."

As Morgan went, albeit reluctantly and casting a 'not happy' face at Chuck, to attach the cables to the lighting rod, Chuck looked down at his unconscious patient.

"Awesome" said Chuck, not realising he'd copied his brother-in-law "Just think, this poor brain damaged hulk will soon be re-made. Faster, stronger, better. We can re-build him!" Chuck checked that Morgan was safely on his way back down, he then turned to Sarah saying "It's time" as he stood on the platform that would raise him and the patient aloft.

Sarah looked around and said in a low intimate tone "What, here? Now?" and when Chuck started to splutter, she let her saucy smile loose.

Chuck recovered enough to try and sauce back "You have a dirty mind, Miss Walker."

She trumped him with a "You have _no_ idea" whispered in a manner and proximity that would ruin his fine motor skills for the next few minutes. And his sleep over the next few nights would suffer some collateral damage as well.

And at that moment, Morgan saw that Chuck was standing on the platform, and he started it on its way up. Chuck's half prepared speech about manifest destiny and how the human species had clawed its way from the slime to challenge the sky was reduced to a far more brief "Unk!" as he grabbed onto the platform for dear life to stop himself from falling off.

In the end, plugging the cables into the leads that emerged from the body on the slab was quite uneventful.

So uneventful that after five minutes, nothing was still happening. Even after the _third_ switch was thrown.

Chuck took it with grace and humility. So much humility that Morgan tried to Vulcan nerve pinch him (which didn't work) and Sarah had to haul him bodily away (which did) from the unconscious agent on the table while Chuck apparently tried to administer a vigorous external cardiac massage to the "Ungrateful bastard" as Chuck seemed to want to call him now.

-o0o-

Lightning illuminated the swinging sign outside the tavern.

'_The Jugular and Vein. We have _ONE_ flavor of beer!'_

It was packed with patrons dissatisfied with life in general, and the news that another Bartowski was in residence in particular.

"He's a Bartowski! And they're all alike!" declared the vocals half of the world famous (here in Transburbanklvania) musical group Jeffster!

"They take all the hot women" slurred the keyboard-and-guitar section, and after a monumental burp, he was able to managed "Its good to be the king" with one of his trade mark and inappropriate slo-mo winks, before swilling 'Beer' brand beer from his personalised flagon that featured a dragon (it replaced the one he'd broken, the challis from the Palace Hotel and Ballroom).

An imposing figure settled things down. Inspector Colt. Because he was large, he went for imposing. He usually succeeded.

"Who is this Chuck?" he asked in his deep voice. The room shrugged, somewhat imposed, "These Bartowski's, they give _me_ the hee-bee-jee-bees. Perhaps it's time I had a little chat with this _Chuck_. If he is indeed, following in his fathers footsteps, he'll rue the day he was born a Bartowski."

-o0o-

"Chuck, you haven't even touched your food" Sarah complained.

Chuck touched his dinner by moaning "What's the use" after he face-planted into the borsht, which was beastly anyway.

"There, see? He touched his food" grinned Morgan, before wincing at her glare. From the way she held that knife, he could have sworn she was about to throw it.

Sarah took Chuck aside to clean him up. She cleaned up his face, and looked at him, gauging the cleanliness.

Big mistake. Huge. As in 'This _Firefly_ show, do we cancel it, or what?' huge.

They locked eyes and within a heartbeat were close enough to kiss each other hungrily.

They hesitated just before their first kiss, and then dove right in. After a second, they separated, looking at each other as if seeking permission. After that, it was on. Sarah was sort of moaning and clutching him as tightly to herself as she could when the cold realisation of what she was doing hit her like a wet fish slapping dance.

"Chuck, I ... we can't. I'm your handler" she seemed to have problems focusing and/or using the English language for some reason.

Chuck was still breathing hard as one of the side effects from the kiss "I... I don't care."

"Chuck, I'm a spy. I have to remain in control" _Of myself _she thought "I need to remain objective, so I can control you."

Chuck grinned maddeningly as he lifted her chin so he could gaze into her eyes "I'm pretty sure, Sarah Walker, that I'll do anything you ever ask me to do."

"Mmmmm..."

Chuck grinned "Oh, come on, that was pretty cheesy. You didn't need to make a yummy sound."

"Chuck, I didn't make a yummy sound." _Well, not just then..._

"Mmmmmm..."

The realisation hit them both, and he yanked her along as they raced to the lab. Morgan came back from taking the dishes away, and followed the two that were still holding hands.

-o0o-

The man on the table was awake, his eyes open and roaming. He was a mess. A map of scars covered his face, a gift of the trauma that brought him here. Shaved bald for the procedure, an awful lot of sutures and a USB plug are prominent features sticking out of his head.

Chuck allowed himself a little 'frantic chimpanzee' dance to celebrate, before calming himself. This was a world first, after all. Stories, movies and television dramas would be made about this moment.

"Hello" said Chuck in the manner used to speak to small children who have difficulty grasping the concept of keeping Lego bricks separate from nasal cavities and bodily orifices in general "I'm going to help you get up, would you liked that?" and then out of the corner of his mouth, asked Sarah and Morgan "Is the sedative ready?"

He saw Sarah nod affirmatively with a micro movement, and after removing the IV feeds, began ripping the Velcro straps holding the large major still.

"I want you to sit up" Chuck said as calmly as he could to a very large man who looked rather angry about the USB port stuck into his noggin.

The agent managed to get up with Chuck's help. He didn't look particularly grateful about the assistance.

"Now stand!" asserted Chuck. He was beside himself. It had worked! From the injuries the agent had sustained, what was happening was amazing. Chuck glanced at Sarah, she was beaming hugely at him.

After an initial false start, the large agent was standing, towering over Chuck, not a common occurrence. Chuck backed away, encouraging the giant to "Walk towards me."

After a faltering start, the large man spread his arms for balance, and managed three wobbly steps towards Chuck.

That was when things started to gang aft agley. Chuck had never known what an 'agley' was prior to this, but at this moment, that was the way things started to gang. Morgan used his iPhone to commemorate the success. The creature from the black USB port reacted poorly to the camera flash, to say the least. And the gang hit the agley.

"Waaaaaah!" was his articulation as he searched for the nearest thing to strangle in retaliation to being startled. That 'nearest thing' turned out to be Chuck.

Chuck had the unique perspective of the universe seemingly bounce up-and-down while things turned a delicate shade of black as anoxia set in. Using his quick mind Chuck alerted his assistants with an eloquent "Quick, give him a sedative."

What actually emerged owing to the asphyxiation, two very large paws wrapped around his throat and the rapidly alternating positive and negative gee forces was "...ack..."

Chuck regained consciousness as the large, sedated creation of his was dragged off the top of him. His first sight was that of Sarah, looking frantic as she assessed his condition. Eventually, she returned his smile.

She helped him up, and all three managed to get the now snoring at 6.3 on the Richter scale experiment lifted back on the operating table. The Velcro straps were firmly reattached and tested. Twice. Chuck looked down at his erstwhile assassin.

"Sarah, can you give us moment please? Morgan, I think we need to have a little chat."

Sarah moved out of the way, but kept an eye on her genius doctor.

"Morgan" Chuck continued "When you got the chip for his brain, did anything happen?"

"You... you're not gonna get mad are you?"

Chuck glanced at Sarah, then returned his attention to Morgan "I will not get mad" Chuck said through gritted teeth.

"I ... uh ... I think it said his name or something."

"And what, pray tell, was that name?"

"Um.. John Casey?"

"John Casey" repeated Chuck with a frown.

"I'm almost sure that was the name. He had a funny middle name, though."

"Oooh, let me guess" said Chuck to the ceiling "Abnormal?"

"Yeah" said Morgan brightly "How did you..."

"Or... _might_ it have read Casing Join, Abnormal?" asked Chuck, furiously calm. So calmly in fact that Sarah decided to try and position herself between Chuck and Morgan.

Morgan wisely began to back up "Um... maybe.."

Sarah was trying to get Chuck's attention by holding him back as Morgan bravely turned his tail and fled, when they all heard the huge knockers being banged.

-o0o-

Chuck found the large African-Transburbanklyvaninan Inspector Colt waiting for him in the games room, after Sarah had calmed him down and made him go and change clothes.

Originally the games room had a full sized snooker table, darts board and a Uno card table. Morgan and Chuck had improved it with the application of three large flat-screens and a Wii, a PS3 and an X-Box. Sarah had giggled at the pair when they'd slalomed the Wii down something they'd claimed was a winter Olympic run the previous week.

"Monsters, Hah!" declared Chuck as he swung the Wii controller, releasing the virtual bowling ball on the screen down the lane for a strike. "Inspector, this is the twenty first century. There are no such things as monsters."

Chuck was lining up for his second bowl as Inspector Colt said "But this is Transburbankl**vania!**" his last emphasis suspiciously in time with Chuck's release and subsequent gutter ball.

Colt prepared his controller with a happy smile. Chuck said "I would have thought that people were past such superstitions" as Colt swung and struck. He got a strike the next time too "And the locals, they remember the last time a Bartowski was in residence."

Chuck wiped his palm as he prepared for his turn. Inspector Colt took the opportunity as Chuck began his backswing "You wouldn't want to be hung by your ankles from the Schwartz building, high over Fedak**strass!" **

A seven ten split. Chuck was beginning to suspect his opponent of poor sportsmanship. Chuck was able to clean up the seven pin at least.

"Mmmmm"

Colt eyed Chuck suspiciously. The nerdy doctor seemed to have developed a nasty twitch.

"I agree with you" lied Chuck hurriedly "Dangleage by the ankles is not a pleasant prospect."

After another pair of strikes by the imposing inspector Colt, Chuck decided he'd had enough and thanked the good inspector, bade him a good night saying he was tired and was off to bed.

As soon as the inspector's Hummer was out of the parking lot, Chuck raced back down to the lab.

-o0o-

Frau Raureif looked down at the man with an abnormal casing join in his head. "They don't know you for what you are, but I do" she said as she released the Velcro.

"Frau Raureif! No!" cried Chuck and Sarah. Too late.

The monstrous agent stood and roared triumphantly at his freedom.

"He's ... he's got a rotten join casing" said Chuck not realising he'd gotten it the wrong way 'round.

"No, John Casey's not rotten!" cried Frau Raureif.

While the freshly christened 'John Casey' seemed to be unable to produce a single recognisable articulation, it appeared he understood what was being said.

He demonstrated his grasp of the spoken word by destroying every delicate, and some not so delicate, pieces of equipment he found within reach as he stared hard at Chuck and growled.

"Uh, Chuck? You might want to ease up on the 'r' word there" said Morgan as he cowered behind Chuck and Sarah.

The good Frau picked up an eighties sized ghetto blaster, retro-fitted for iPod connectivity, and pressed play.

Enya's _Orinoco Flow_ began to play.

Casey underwent a metamorphosis. He stood there, transfixed by the music, and began to make little happy sounds. He smiled almost gently as he tried to pluck the notes from the air.

Morgan said "What's with him? He's gone all bendy."

Chuck suddenly had a light-bulb moment. "That music! It was playing the other night..." He focused on Frau Raureif "...You played that music..."

"Yes" she said, as she backed up the stairs, leading Casey in his beatific moment.

"...You led us down here... so I would find the laboratory..."

"Yes!" she enthused.

"So it was you..."

"Yes! This was Stephen's greatest dream!"

Another light-bulb joined the first. There was something about the way she said his father's name. "...Then, you and he were..."

"Yes! Say it! He was my **asset!**"

"That means... wait, asset?" the second light-bulb dimmed sharply.

"You're Frost!" realised Sarah, taking up the light bulb. Frost, the legend the students at the T.I.T.T.Y. training academy, known as The Veld, had all heard whispers about her.

"You... you're the one. You married your asset..." Sarah whispered with the same expression as someone who just realised that those dorsal fins swimming around the surfboard just might not belong to the friendly dolphin.

Chuck realised something important had just happened. Well, several somethings, but one of them might be personal. "Wha... Sarah? What's going on?"

"Chuck, I think..." she checked with Frost, who nodded encouragement "I think agent Frost is you moth...er"

Chuck failed to hear the rest of the word, as he'd fainted again. This lead to another important something.

As Chuck fainted, both Sarah and Frost rushed to him. That pulled the boom-box's power cord from the socket, killing the sweet sound of _Orinoco Flow. _The monstrous agent Casey stopped being beatific, and realised he wasn't destroying things anymore. Well, that just wasn't good enough.

As he pushed past the ensemble on the landing, he tried to step over Chuck. Sarah pushed him away, as she tried to protect her asset. Casey toppled into a stack of capacitors that would have any health and safety inspector worth his salt reach for the red pen.

There was a large cascade of sparks as the capacitor bank discharged, a fair chunk of it via Casey, proving the hypothetical safety inspectors use of the hypothetical red pen.

"Waaaaah!" he cried in pain, as he fled the lab for the relative safety of the outside world.

-o0o-

* * *

><p><strong>A.N II - <strong>I do apologise for this chapter, it seems to have an awful lot of references for some reason. The tavern scene sort of got away on me. I couldn't stop it.

Also, by a strange stroke of fate, my wife and I watched _Firefly_ over the week end. The train episode. There is a scene where Jayne is drugged by Simon. The large goatee'd one tries to catch 'bendy' butterflies...

-o0o-


	6. Espresso

-o0o-

As of 10.10.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**A very scary thought** – During the past week, one of my wife's staff said to her 'Surely you can't be serious.'

Naturally, her reply was the obvious one (No woman _I_ marry is going to miss a straight line like that).

Except... No-one had heard that before. Five staff, all in their early thirties, and none of them knew of 'Flying High' (or 'Airplane' to the rest of the world). When she tried to explain, she said they all gave her _that look._ You know, the one you gave your parents when they talked about some old film (probably black and white) that was obviously of no interest to you at all.

I'm hoping that the same does not apply in our shared pool of specialised insanity. Otherwise, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

**Chapter Six.**

-o0o

Once again, Chuck found consciousness, a little reluctantly since he had a nagging feeling he'd lost it for a rather good reason, with Sarah swimming into view. That sort of made up for the reluctance.

She was managing the somewhat Sarah-esq feat of looking relieved and worried at the same time.

"Chuck!" she cried, seemingly pleased he was OK.

"Hi" he smiled as he sat up. She leant forward a little, as if to hug him, but then sat still. Chuck ran through the events from before his passing out. 'Passing out' sounded far better than 'fainted.'

"Um... was there something about Frau Rau... Frost. You said she was agent Frost. She was my father's ..." it all came back in a flash.

"Married... you said she's _my mother.._.." he said, his eyes bulging as big as hubcaps, which one still saw on cars in Transburbanklyvanina.

Sarah nodded. She took a breath "Agent Frost is a ... well, she's a legend. When I went through The Veld, she was the one I tried to emulate. She was so good, that when she fell in lov... married her asset... it was only because she _was_ Frost that she got away with it."

"What do you mean, 'got away with it?'"

"Spies don't fall in love, Chuck."

After a long hesitation, he mumbled "Apparently their assets can."

"It's... a common spy problem" she told the same patch of quilt he was trying to out stare.

Chuck looked up her. Anything he said now was fraught with danger. "Mmm hmm" seemed the safest option. Time to change the subject.

"So... I have a mother" continued Chuck. "What happens now?"

"Well, at the moment, Major Casey is loose..."

"Major Casey?"

"He was a Major before the accident. And Casey seems to be the best name for him now."

Chuck realised he may have been partly responsible for naming him Casey. "I've created a monster" he muttered.

Sarah sighed, a moment Chuck tried to memorise for later savouring, "Well, that's what the locals think. Two beer breath locals saw him run off into the night."

Chuck flopped back onto the pillow "OK, I've got a mother I need to re-connect with, and a monster to catch. No pressure then."

-o0o-

The daughter of a humble wood cutter played with innocent innocence outside her house. A large shadow fell over her, and she looked up. There was a big man standing there.

"You have a USB cable sticking out of your head, did you know?" she was young, but knew USB cables didn't belong in a people's head.

"Mmm" the big man nodded. Apparently he was aware of the USB cable. Maybe he'd come to terms with it, because it didn't look like he was too upset about it anymore.

Inside the humble wood cutter's cottage, the humble wood cutter finished nailing the last board across the window. He repeated a saying he'd heard from his father, Woody the wood cutter, "When monsters are loose, not awesome." He wiped his brow and impressive, if suspiciously hairless, chest.

His beautiful wife said "It's good you checked Clara was safe inside."

Outside, Clara, for that indeed was the little girl's name, was teaching Casey how to play 'loves me, loves me not' near the well. Casey seemed to like pulling the petals off the flowers, as he did them a fist-full at a time.

"Hmmp" he grunted happily, as he dropped the remaining half of the flower petals down the well. Clara sighed theatrically, as five year olds are wont to do, and copied her mother's hands-on-hips pose.

"Well? _Now_ what are you going to throw down the well?" she wanted to know. Casey looked around, and then back at Clara. He'd had a thought. "Mmm-mmm" he signified.

Back inside, the humble wood cutter had a paroxysm of horror cross his chiselled visage "But I thought you checked on Clara..."

The pair looked at each other in a shared moment of panic, before running up the beautiful and humbly carved wooden stairs.

Meanwhile, outside, in a scene reminiscent of a Mythbuster episode, Clara was sitting on one end of a humble wooden see-saw (as they were known locally) demanding of Casey "Sit down!"

Casey was unsure. He wasn't one hundred percent certain, but he was pretty sure the see-saw might not work as advertised with himself on the other side. Mathematical tables of parabolas, and ICBMs flashed fleetingly through his brain. He tried to operate the garden toy by pushing it down. Clara wasn't satisfied with this half-handed approach. She wanted the full monty.

"Sit Down!" she demanded again.

Casey wasn't certain how to deal with women in general, and miniature ones seemed to be just more concentrated. He sat down. The boys (and girl) from Mythbusters would have been pleased with the result.

It all worked just the way the myth said it would. Casey hit the ground with a thud. Clara's face showed exhilaration on her way up. All the way up. She achieved free fall without the use of a staging rocket. The other end of the see-saw was still going 'bwa-dwoing-a-dwoing-a-dwong-ong-ong' as she sailed serenely overhead towards the upper window of the nearby humble wooden cottage.

In a scene that would have been difficult to film in an era before CGI animation, Clara flew neatly through the open window to bounce onto her own bed. Just in time for her parents to burst in, and see her resting comfortably.

"Awesome" said the humble wood cutter, as his wife held his smooth chest close.

-o0o-

Casey roamed the rest of the day. He wasn't comfortable around people, and from what he'd seen so far, people weren't comfortable around him. There'd been some pointing and screaming. More that average pointing-and-screaming he felt anyways.

It was dark as he ghosted through the forbidding forest. For a large man with a USB dongle dangling from his dome, he moved quietly. The cottage ahead had no lights. He thought he might be able to rest in there.

The cottage was dark because the occupant inside was blind. It's a funny thing, but blind people seem to forget about turning on the lights after dark. A bit of an inconvenience for unannounced guests.

And yet, in this case a popular one. As the local resident tragic 'blind man,' the blind man had perpetuated this by opening the door to his semi frequent evening visits by the young ladies of the nearby village of Echoparkberg by asking confidently if they were his missing true love.

"Hello Diane."

Normally, this would be responded to by the stream of healthy young ladies enquiring after the welfare of this tragic and lonely man. Most of them seemed to be compelled to stay, sometimes for up to eight hours at a time, to make sure he was safe for the night. Their unspoken agreement was, if the light was _on_ he 'had company.'

On this night however, his "Hello Diane" had a very different reply to the somewhat slightly frequent "Oh, you poor man."

*Grunt*

He put his hand out, expecting a feminine shoulder to caress and guide inside, instead he hit a solid chest. "My, but _you're_ a tall one. Come in, my dear, I didn't catch your name."

"Mmmm."

"I'm sorry, what was that again?"

"Mmmm."

The blind man realised three things. One, the large chest was distinctly masculine, and two, so was the voice. Unless one of the Transburbankylvanian women's Olympic swim (or less likely, weight lifting) team had popped by for coffee, his visitor was a 'he.'

Third, he seemed to be slightly inarticulate.

His visitor must be a mute. "You must have been the biggest one in your class."

As he said the word 'class,' he wondered briefly if he was in the presence of one of his former students, possibly the least garrulous man he'd ever met, and a large man too. The rest of the class had nicknamed him 'agent Frankenstein.' The one he had had to fail. Twice. In the end, this agent's best method of seduction involved pharmaceutical grade tranquilizers and C4.

Best see if he could salvage something of the evening by getting rid of his visitor as soon as possible. There was still a possibility of one of the local 'Diane's' checking on him later...

Fortunately, he happened to have some soup on the stove. Bravo.

"What an irony this is, me a poor blind man, starved of company. And you a mute... An incredibly big mute..." he double checked by thumping where he thought the shoulder should be. Nope, it was higher still. "Share some of my simple soup with me, and I'll teach you the proper way to drink a martini."

The soup was a disaster.

Casey was starving. He quite literally couldn't recall his last meal – it had been rehydrated rations, not sure what, eaten hurriedly while in the field somewhere in Butphuqistan before he'd been wounded.

Casey found a crude bowl, and held it out. What soup that did land in the bowl, not a lot for some reason, smelled wonderful. Sadly, most of the _very_ hot soup landed in Casey's lap. Painfully. The soup he did have was painfully hot in another way. Perhaps being blind, the blind man had mistaken Paprika for a different spice. Or else had mistaken the 'half-teaspoon' measure for 'cup.'

The martini didn't go well either. When the glasses were 'tinged' together, instead of a musical 'ting,' Casey's glass reduced itself to just the stem. Even the olives were gone.

Casey decided it was time to go. When the blind man produced two cigars, Casey eyed him with suspicion. With the way things had gone so far this evening, he'd end up with something on fire.

A little while after Casey fled into the night, there was a shy knock at the door to the blind man's door.

"Hello Diane" came his reply as he opened the door with a smile.

"Oh, you poor man, is there some way..." came the much more pleasant feminine voice. And it smelled as if she'd brought food. Something more substantial than soup, at least.

'_I've still got it'_ thought the blind man. "Espresso?"

-o0o-

Meanwhile, back in town, Chuck and Sarah were on a stake-out. Much to Chuck's disappointment, his 'stake-out' mix was reduced to _Orinoco Flow_ over and over. And over.

Morgan at least saved the day with some Chinese take-out. Sui Mai and Char Siew Bao. It was like he had a black belt in meal recommendations for less than one hundred and thirty seven wepdiggies, forty six aypees, the current exchange rate to ten dollars in a currency Chuck was more familiar with.

Sarah was once again revealing what Morgan had referred to as her 'aversion to clothing,' by wearing a short skirted outfit with a low neckline. Red, or salmon. It rather reminded Chuck of a Bavarian themed restaurant that was popular with some of the male students when he went to university. All she needed was the ridiculous little hot dog necklace. Chuck had enjoyed it, but his roommate had dated one of the girls, said she complained that the uniform smelled of sausage.

But with Sarah wearing the simulacra, the nostalgia returned. They'd been a little awkward with each other since the kiss. And things had conspired to occupy their time in such a way that they'd had to be professional, work together and not talk about it.

While she waited in the laneway with him, smelling of a light and nice perfume / shampoo mixture. And dressed ... well, the way she always seemed to always dress.

She was driving him nuts.

"I've got movement" she whispered. Adding goose bumps to his current list of troubles.

_There_, a monstrous shadow lurched, showing a figure coming up the cobbled street, seeming to follow the music of Enya. Chuck nodded to Morgan across the street, who checked that the line running up to the net overhead was ready to be released.

A simple plan, that couldn't possibly go wrong.

Naturally, it went wrong shortly after Chuck yelled "Now!" when Morgan yanked on the quick release knot, and turned it into something resembling a knot favoured by Gordias of legend, and butter fingered failed boy scouts everywhere.

When Chuck, not at that time realising that the net was still safely overhead and well out danger of entangling anyone, rushed at Casey, the cable from his iPhone was yanked out of the speakers playing that same damned song over and over. Casey realised it was a trap when the music stopped, and brought him to awareness of the situation. That, and Chuck bouncing off him and falling down onto the cobble stones.

"Mmmm!" wasn't a yummy sound this time. It was a little menacing.

Chuck in particular thought so, since those huge paws were reaching out for the familiar territory of his neck. Again. Annnd here we go with the bouncing. Again. Chuck felt that they should have been past this by now.

Sarah saved the day. With a growl that put the fear of Sarah into both Chuck and Morgan, and frankly gave Casey pause, she reached into somewhere intimate in her clothes and flung a knife at the knot Morgan still had his fingers worrying at.

With a metallic wiffling sound the knife flew straight at the knot in a manner that should have been filmed lovingly in slow motion and severed the knot, millimetres from Morgan's fingers.

Morgan looked at the severed knot, his fingers and the knife.

"Uh..."

All his fingers still seemed to be there. The cargo net fell as advertised, if a trifle late, down over Casey. And Chuck.

In the ensuing scuffle, Casey ended up on the bottom of the pile, along with Chuck under the net. In some ways, this made a pleasant change for Chuck, as back in high school, he'd usually been the one at the bottom of the pile. Although cargo nets were rarely an option in the school yard. At least the schools Chuck had attended.

As he was trussed and twisted up in the net, he was unable to reach the syringe in his pocket to sedate Casey. Casey was having his own troubles with the net. Its tangling properties were preventing him from strangling the nearest moron, and he was feeling rather vexed about that.

"Gnaaarrrh!"

That was when Sarah added her body to the mix. Chuck found himself with his face between Casey's and Sarah's. While he wanted to look at Sarah's, after all hers was prettier than Casey's, Casey had a certain _je ne sais quoi_ that made Chuck look at him rather than her.

Even when he felt her hand inside his pocket, reaching for the syringe.

After she got the syringe out, it was fairly straight forward. Chuck was finally able to look at Sarah, rather than Casey. They shared a smile.

Just in time for Morgan to jump onto the pile.

-o0o-


	7. Oooting Onna IiiiiiiitZ!

-o0o-

As of 18.10.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al. P.G. Wodehouse's _Jeeves, And The Song Of Songs_ may have inspired some of the riot scene at the concert.

.

**Regarding my last AN – **You may be pleased to know that the staff who failed to know that 'The white zone is for loading and unloading only' have been tranqed, bound and gagged with duct-taped and taken to an encampment _not_ shown on Google Earth for 're-education.' If you've seen Red Dawn, you get the idea (BTW – have you any idea how hard it is to find a drive-in theatre these days? When I was learning to fly, they were everywhere, and a navigation land mark shown on the terminal charts. Now, they're just _gone_).

.

Sadly, I think the phrase I'm looking for rhymes with 'clucking bell.' Aust is now out of the RWC. I guess that means I'm following the Kiwis now... Always had a soft spot for Wal Footrot.

Oh, and by the way, I think this chapter has _the_ most Casey dialogue I've ever written...

**Chapter Seven.**

-o0o-

"Chuck?"

"Yes Morgan" Chuck said with a due sense of dread.

"It's been nice working with you" Morgan said as Mary typed in the code to open the plexiglass holding cell that was one of the selling points that Chuck's inherited underground bunker, Castle, featured.

When Chuck discovered he owned a set of holding cells, he honestly didn't know what to think. Although he did flash briefly to an image of Michael Palin hanging upside down, yelling "You lucky, jammy bastards!" Wasn't the same with plexiglass, somehow.

Sarah and his mom had proudly pointed out that the plexiglass was both bullet proof and explosives resistant. Chuck rather thought that the fifteen or so inch-and-a-half wide holes per cell in the plexi kind of negated the whole 'bullet proof' part, but he didn't say anything.

It probably _was_ bullet proof, if you missed the holes. If, on the other hand, you were unlucky enough to be locked in one, just hope that no one thought to stick a gun through the holes...

The recently sedated Major Casey was inside the cell. It looked like he wanted out. It looked like he wanted out, _bad_. Sarah had produced a set of handcuffs so Casey couldn't move too far from the bunk bolted to the wall.

Sarah had needed to go to her room for the cuffs. When she came back with them, Chuck had looked at Sarah, somewhat surprised.

They both ignored Morgan's "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink."

"They belong to another agent I worked with. She left them in my bag accidentally" she mumbled. The other set, the pink fur-lined ones, were currently _very_ well hidden.

Chuck wasn't all that certain that one set of handcuffs was enough. Casey looked like the type to rip the bunk out of the wall.

Or break his thumb to free himself.

The plexi door hissed closed with a Star Trek-y sound effect, and Chuck faced a grumpy Casey who was studying Chuck in the same manner as a convention hall would stare at him if Chuck had turned up at a Trek convention, dressed as a Storm Trooper. Or as _anyone_ from Babylon 5.

Now, with the door closed behind him, Chuck was beginning to regret how stridently he'd emphasised the "No matter how much I scream, how much I beg, do **not** open the door."

Casey moved, and something in the handcuffs / bunk bed / wall mount ensemble 'clinked.'

"Mommy" whimpered Chuck.

All of a sudden this felt like a BAD idea. Like, thinking that the _Green Lantern_ movie was a timeless classic, or 'We should invade Butphuqistan' level of bad idea.

Casey growled something, and the part of Chuck's brain that wasn't contemplating what shorts to change into later, tried to anthropomorphise the growl in to the word 'moron.'

It would have been so much easier if they could just tranq the big scary man. Chuck had vetoed that, they needed the brain, his brain, alert while in the ATS.

Yeah, that was another thing that Castle featured, a next gen Axial Tomography Scanner. The models this thing gave made an MRI look as fuzzy as Roentgen's first X-ray.

"Uh, so, Major..." began Chuck.

"Ask him about the sandwich" suggested Morgan tapping on the Plexiglass, who then realised the looks he was getting. "What? It's a good ice breaker at parties" he claimed, despite the repressed memories of pedalling home with underwear soaked in mojito(s). To be honest, the sandwich conundrum may not have been the sole reason for his evenings out ending in a wet splashy sound.

"...Um... People are scared of you..." continued Chuck.

"Mmmmm!"

Chuck rather felt that the Major's grunt was a tad proud. Maybe he should start making a note of these noises. Number them or something. "... You know why? They're jealous, that's why."

"Mmm?"

This numbering idea might be worth looking into.

"Yes, jealous. You're big, good looking..." Chuck ignored the coughing spluttery sounds he heard from outside the cell "...obviously up to date with technology" Chuck fingered an imaginary USB dongle on his own head "You look like you could kill with your bare hands..."

"Mmmmm!"

OK, if he was going to continue with the numbering idea, call that sound a solid number one. "That's why they're scared of you! But you don't have to be so angry all the time."

"Mmph!"

OK, this numbering might be more complicated than originally envisaged. There were layers in that one. Definitely distain...

-o0o-

In the end, it was the numbered grunts that worked.

Chuck tried to flatter him... "This is a good soldier... _Marine!_ I meant Marine!..."

_That_ one had loosened one of the bolts holding Casey to the wall.

"Major, this is a direct order! I order you to..." _That_ caused the closest thing to laughter on either side of the Plexiglass that _any_ holding cell had heard.

Chuck sagged down the Plexi. He sighed "Casey, I need to work with you. But we need to understand you."

"Mmmh"

"See? I understood that... Casey? Will you work with me? I need to look at the thing in your head. But to do that, we need to work together, we need to understand you... what you're saying."

-o0o-

It took two weeks.

Morgan played a lot of X-Box.

Sarah belted the crap out of a punching dummy an awful lot.

Which distracted Chuck when she ... Chuck didn't want to use the word 'strut,' but was hard pressed to think of another description ... passed them on her way to or from the gym she'd set up (on the way _from_ the gym was nice... she was all sweaty. Sounds gross but Chuck observed a benefit or two).

Twice Casey had slapped Chuck on the back of the head. His grunt was later able to be translated into:

"_**Eyes front, soldier."**_

It wasn't Chuck's fault that gym gear was essentially underwear, was it? And why did she set the gym up down here anyway?

-o0o-

"It's no use. The casing fried itself when it was installed. We can't remove it, and updating the data seems to be intermittent" said Chuck, looking over the image on the screen.

"Mmm" agreed Casey.

The data was there, Casey just had trouble _accessing_ it. The way things should work was Casey would see or hear something, and the appropriate data would sort of flash across his brain. Know aliases and associates of bad guys. How to defuse a pocket nuke – an alarming devise, Chuck had always assumed that the name was an exaggeration.

It worked. Part of the time. Which was frustrating both Chuck and Casey.

Mary stood quietly at the door, Sarah looked up and nodded minutely. After a moment, she excused herself, and left to join Mary. Casey noticed, and kept quiet, a fairly simple task for him. Chuck just kept on pouring over the screen.

After a little while Sarah came back in "Uh... Chuck?"

"Mmm?" asked Chuck. Maybe working on the numbered grunts had rubbed off.

"Chuck, we've... we've got a mission."

Morgan came in later to wipe that coffee off the screen.

-o0o-

The former Nerd Herder had had its front seat and passenger door replaced. The new door was yellow.

"He's not ready" Chuck whispered to Sarah. It didn't seem fair that she didn't undergo the same frenzy of goose bumps that he did when she whispered to _him_.

When Casey had squeezed into the rear, the car had settled like a half ton of concrete had just been poured into it.

"Mmph!" Casey grunted from the backseat.

Chuck's phone beeped. On the screen it read:

_**Option 1 "Yeah, I want a cookie"**_

_**Option 2 "I'm right here, moron"**_

_**Option 3 "Hillary Clintonoveskivetch is a wonderful Secretary Of State"**_

The translation program might still have some bugs in it. It had worked better in the lab. Less noise pollution, Chuck thought.

"Chuck" she whispered back to him. _And_ again with the goose bumps. Chuck partially looked forward to a time when she didn't _do_ that to him. And a bigger part of him wished that time would never come.

"All he has to do is observe and identify the mole. The voice recording was clear, and the update seemed to go OK."

Casey's "Gnnah!" made Chuck phone beep again:

_**Option 1"Excuse me, I need to use the facilities"**_

_**Option 2 "I find Doc Martin boots aesthetically pleasing"**_

_**Option 3 "Perhaps it is time to depart"**_

Sarah parked the Herder, and they got out. The night club stood out on the drab Fedakstrasse, like a flamingo in an emperor penguin rookery.

Thanks to some blown tubes in the neon, the sign over the club proclaimed its name to be "_El Buffo_." Chuck was pretty sure they wouldn't have to nude up to get in. Pretty sure.

In order to hide the USB dongle that dangled, Casey wore a hair piece. A long, luxuriant mane of hair.

The type otherwise known as a mullet. Morgan had declined to explain how it came into his possession.

The bouncer thought Casey was from the band _Europe_. That made Sarah the groupie. And Chuck was thus by default then either the manager, or drug supply. Or possibly both. While it did get them in, not all of them were happy about their assigned positions.

"I am **not** a _groupie_!" she somehow managed to hiss a sentence that failed to have any esses in it.

"Hmmh!" didn't have any 'esses' either, but then it wasn't really a hiss.

_Beep_

_**Option 1 "Disco lives!"**_

_**Option 2 "Peanut butter and # error 352, syntax #"**_

_**Option 3 "May I remind you, I need to use the facilities"**_

"Well, I suppose we're in" placated Chuck "For free too, I might add. And maybe I should turn this off while we're in here" he held the iPhone up.

"Hmh"

_Beep_

_**Option 1 "Moron"**_

_**Option 2 "Imbecile"**_

_**Option 3 "Cretin"**_

Chuck quickly ran through the options on the phone to deactivate the app.

-o0o-

It was really Sarah's fault that Casey found himself on stage. The audience seemed to expect something. The clue was the whistling, foot stomping and general mayhem.

The club was packed. The trio at first tried to mingle, but it was too crowded and noisy. Also, Chuck suspected that Casey had hit his 'moron event horizon' fairly early on during the mingle phase. And Sarah seemed to now have a substantial fraction of the male portion of the club's patrons following her, singing "_You never close your eyes..._" for reasons inadequately explored.

The trio had found themselves, by mutual agreement, trying to escape the crowd and had found a door that wasn't locked after Sarah had fiddled with it for three seconds.

Chuck now had the image of Sarah's short skirt riding up her thighs as she crouched down to work the lock burned into his long term memory. At least he _hoped_ it was in the long term file. He checked, well it was still there for the moment.

So, seeing as how men cannot multi-task, it was really Sarah's fault he bumped into a larger, dishevelled man backstage while he was double double checking on his long term memory.

"Ooof"

From what was by now becoming a familiar perspective for Chuck, Chuck looked up from the floor at some Indian-Transburbankylvanian of indeterminate gender asking the larger fellow "Jefferski, are you alright?" and then down to Chuck "Why don't you watch..." a slight pause as he (or she) noticed Casey "...It's you... It's you... you're here...are you alright?" he (or she) wanted to know of Casey.

The question asked in the same awe as a five year old girl on seeing Tinkerbelle at Disneyland for the first time.

"It's you, it's really you..." uttered the larger Jefferski, also channelling the previously mentioned hypothetical five year old.

Chuck and Sarah looked at Casey.

"Mmmp?"

The greasier fellow ran onto stage, and using the microphone on the stand announced to the entire club:

"Ladies and gentlemen! It is my immense throbbing pleasure to announce a huge, huge treat for you all. We have with us here, we are in the presence of *cough* Hrmmmumph from the band **Europe!** Lets here it for him! Come on out here..."

-o0o-

Sarah stood off stage, clutching Chuck's arm tightly. Chuck's left hand had passed the pins-and-needles stage some time back and was now in danger of needing a Ouija board to communicate with its owner.

Chuck didn't notice.

The trio of Jeffster! (if you included their gently _de_flating _in_flatable Satan) were behind them as the keyboard-y guitar began the intro to '_The Final Countdown._'

That left Casey standing centre stage in a spotlight holding a microphone. His attention never waivered from Chuck's frozen face for a heartbeat. He was glaring at Chuck in that 'I'm going to use your own internal organs to be the cause of your death, and then dance on the remains in hob-nailed boots' glare.

Some of those glares were oddly specific.

Chuck had no option but to encourage Casey to sing.

It went better than expected. For a while.

"Iiiii aa iiiiiinnnna ounnn owwwn!" was perhaps the most coherent of his lyrics. This while still glaring at Chuck. Who says men can't multi-task?

Chuck appealed to the Jeffster! member holding a microphone. He (or she) joined in. That did improve the clarity of the lyrics, if not the quality of the singing...

"Iiiii aa iiiiiinnnna ounnn owwwn!"

Much to Chuck and Sarah's surprise, the audience responded well. She released her death grip on his arm to applaud. Chuck was suddenly, and painfully, aware that his left arm had been incommunicado for some time. He returned her beaming smile with a sort of 'teeth bared in pain' grimace, but it seemed to pass muster.

The audience were head banging and screaming along with Casey. Perhaps he'd been a coir boy once upon a time, always assuming that coir boys sang hairspray metal songs, because he started to get into the role.

"Iiiii aa iiiiiinnnna ounnn owwwn!"

It was while Casey was head banging, his mullet flew off into the audience. That was also when he 'flashed' on Bernie 'The Carnivore' Ominsky, the mole they were hunting.

"Iiiii aa iiiiiinnnna ounnn owwwn!"

While Casey was whipping his wig back and forth in a manner that Chuck found it disturbing that Casey knew that move – perhaps, that was in the Intersect? – his mullet flew off into the audience.

Coincidentally, that was also when the riot started.

Not that Chuck had previously been in anyway involved in a concert that required the audience to donate past due date vegetable material at the stage (and college really didn't count), Chuck would have presumed that the first item to strike Casey would be a cabbage.

Wiser heads than Chuck's prevailed. Chuck observed that a very ripe banana gave a far more satisfactory splat and smell combination. Tomatoes were good for the splat also, and a good bad cabbage had some heft to it, as evidenced by Casey staggering back two paces.

But for overall performance? Banana, you just can't beat an over-ripe banana.

"Who brings rotten fruit and veg to a club?" Sarah wanted to know.

"I know, aren't they great?" replied the keyboard / guitar half of the band after he had dropped his keyboard / guitar onstage and ran for the wings after a nasty near miss involving a pineapple. If they land facing the wrong (or right, depending on if you are the thrower or throwee) way while you are in a compromised condition, they _hurt._

Jefferski was joined by his fellow band member. Both were beaming proudly at the audience as said audience seemed to find its stride in hurling what seemed to be the entire contents of a very dodgy farmers market at only one person now. Casey.

"Rwaourrw!" came through the sound system, as Casey was still holding the mike. He yelled, partly because of the orange that impacted his head and was now burning his left eye with semi fresh orange juice, and partly because he'd flashed on Bernie 'The Carnivore' Ominsky in the audience.

Casey launched himself at 'The Carnivore.'

Keeping in mind that this tale may be availed by younger members of the general public, we now cast a veil of discretion over the ensuing gratuitous carnage. As Stan Feberg once taught us, '_The home is a classroom.'_

Now kiddiwinks, let us remember that scene at the end of _Shrek 2_, when Shrek stage-dived, the crowd parted, and Shrek plummeted onto a cute and fluffy Bichon-Frisé? Well, now imagine that scene with a much scarier, uglier and angrier stage diver. Also the stage divee wasn't any picnic either. Casey didn't have time to see if 'Uncle' Bernie was standing in a puddle.

Jefferski and Lesterovitch shook each others hands. "Best! Concert! Ever!" yelled the smarmier of the pair over the noise of the Schwartzgrad's very own S.W.A.M.P. squad calmly descend upon the club, distributing taps from their riot batons, along with free samples of 'this is what a Taser feels like in the face,' with careless gay abandon.

Jefferski turned to Chuck and Sarah, and yelled "He's still great! He hasn't changed a bit!" over the screams and general enthusiasm of the crowd, as well as the 'hut hut hut' from the S.W.A.M.P. squad, as nine of them were needed to lift Casey bodily and escorted him away to assist them with their enquiries.

Make that eleven. Casey was struggling a bit.

-o0o-

**ANII – **End-o-the-week, season five baby!


	8. A Little Piece Peace!

-o0o-

As of 22.10.11 I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**Chapter Eight.**

-o0o-

Casey's jail cell was at touch more dungeon than Chuck's Plexiglass holding cell. Casey had received this special treatment since the rest of the station was filled with happy and socially excited revellers from the club that the police had thoughtfully brought along with them. Being a regular generally means you get the best rooms in any establishment.

And the local constabulary had looked at Casey, and had the same thought that Chuck had had. One set of handcuffs just wasn't going to be enough.

On the other hand, seven chains to the steel collar at his neck was a hint of overkill. At least there wasn't an angry mob outside. No. They were inside, claiming they were trying to sober up while being questioned. And could someone order pizza?

It was when Casey's turn for questioning, things turned ugly. Well, uglier.

The cops wanted to charge Casey. Their only problem was they had nothing to charge him on. They had thought of 'drunk and incoherent' but he passed the tox screen, and they couldn't lock him up for just being incoherent. Otherwise the jails would be full all the time. The riot act failed too, as El Buffo was a known hot bed of bad music and likewise vegetables. And the coroner announced that the late Mr. Ominski's inevitable massive heart failure that his lifestyle and dietary choices had made, was 'the only surprise was it didn't happen sooner.'

After three minutes of being questions by the four police officers, Casey decided he had had enough, and it was time to depart. While there were seven steel chains of a gauge used in maritime activities connecting his collar to the ring bolts in the concrete, the collar itself was only held by one padlock.

When Casey yanked on it, the government supplied padlock proved its value to the taxpayer by not disintegrating.

The welder who had hastily welded the ring loops onto the collar would shortly be receiving a letter of complaint from the inspector himself over the shoddy quality of his weld, since that was the part on the collar that failed when Casey paid attention to it.

After that, the police officers were almost no obstacle really. The cops would omit from their official report that he was humming happily as he 'worked the room.'

-o0o-

"Well, I guess we identified the mole" said Chuck as Sarah drove them home.

"Chuck..."

"I mean, all T.I.T.T.Y. has to do is run through the admissions to Easternblock Hospital, right?"

"Chuck..." repeated his goddess-y driver.

"Cause I'm pretty sure he would need an X-ray, at least. If not a full body cas..."

"Chuck! I think the mole is the least of our problems right now" she tried to get her asset to focus. Besides, she was pretty sure 'Uncle' Bernie had had a coronary about the same time Casey had decided to leap on him. She decided to fail to mention that to Chuck.

"We need to look after Casey. He's been captured... You can't fixate on just the mission."

Chuck looked at Sarah driving with a careless disregard for the speed limit as she smiled at him. After a moment of gazing at her, he admitted "What can I say? I'm a Bartowski. It's in our genetic code to be hopelessly fixated."

-o0o-

One hundred and seventeen club patrons were ejected for the Police station with the words "Avoid any Jeffster! concerts from now on" receiving polite guffaws and some 'tummy clutching, rolling on the ground, tears of laughter' reactions as an indication of the wisdom of that advise.

The mob then immediately on the station steps (and environs, because there were too many to all fit on the steps) agreed to adjourn for drinks and a frank discussion on the successes and failures of the evening. There was also some mention of Twiterpating, posting celebratory photos on-line and also finding out when the next Jeffster! concert was, since this one had been an absolute hoot.

Their evening got a whole lot 'hootier' when Casey burst through the doors of the station onto the steps (he was still holding onto one desk Sergeant, casually paying attention to him, one handed) and announced his presence.

"RWRAAAAWRRR!"

At that moment, the mob decided, as if with one mind, to seek a quieter location for their intellectual pursuits, and ran from Casey screaming into the night.

-o0o-

"What do you mean _he escaped?_"

"Chuck? Messenger, remember?" said Morgan from a 'Morgan' position.

"Morgan?" tried Sarah "What did they say?"

"Um, it was just the TV. They said there'd been a riot, but every one was released with all charges dropped. And then a prisoner escaped, and something about a riot. Maybe it was the same riot?"

All three looked at each other, and then shook their heads.

Chuck and Sarah drove back to Schwartzgrad on the optimistically named 'highway 405.' It felt like driving over a field that someone had just recently plowed.

There was no sign of Casey.

Four hours later, driving back on the heavily rutted 405 home, Chuck blurted "Tracking. When we get him back, I'm gonna stick a GPS card into that USB of his."

"It's a pity" Sarah said sadly "his phone kept going to voice mail. I wonder what's wrong with his phone."

-o0o-

What was wrong with Casey's phone was; Casey had used it.

Casey wasn't having fun. He needed to get back to Castle. When he approached a couple on the street, his request for directions ("Rwarour?") left him standing alone as the couple fled screaming.

After that, he had an idea. The iPhone. All the team had one. And that nerdy doctor had installed that same translation thing into all of them. Using fingers the size of a 'Wienerlicious-what-ever-the-hell-they-were-on-a-stick,' he pawed though the phone menu in a rising level of frustration before he found it.

Twice when he tapped on it, something called 'Agitated Meerkats' opened up. And the Meerkats took their sweet time opening up. And shutting down too for that matter. The third time was the charm.

"Nnnnng."

_Beep_

_**Option 1 "Sheep are a useful animal"**_

_**Option 2 "Perhaps someone should make a larger version of this, one the size of a note pad"**_

_**Option 3 "The Sound Of Music needed more Nazis to be a proper war film"**_

OK, so it was working. If he could get an option close to what he wanted, he'd be able to point at it and get help that way.

"Hmmp" he grunted as close to happily as he could.

_Beep_

_**Option 1 "This rifle is calibrated nicely"**_

_**Option 2 "For an older model, that Ford is shiny"**_

_**Option 3 "Two Jonny Walker Blues and a Hot Pocket, please"**_

He decided to ignore those, and waited for the next passer-by.

Polite, he needed to remember to be polite...

-o0o-

"Chuck, you have to relax. You can't work like this" she dragged him away from the computer desk, spinning him on the wheelie chair to face her. She bent over to look him in the eyes.

His gaze traversed her body upwards. She had mixed feeling when he desperately tried to not linger at her cleavage. What was the point of leaning over in this dress, otherwise?

And then they just looked into each others eyes. Time passed, a lot of things passed, like the unspoken words between them.

"Chuck" she almost sighed, at the same time as he said "Sarah..." It was like they were trying to patent that simultaneous speaking trick.

He tried again "Sarah, I love..." just at the same time as she said "Chuck we can't..."

"What?" was at the same time as the other "What?" as they perfected their parallel speaking party trick.

-o0o-

Casey waited as patiently as he could. It was on his fifteenth trek between the two lamp posts when he found another couple to help him.

"Mmm."

_Beep_

_**Option 1 "My name is John, and I'm lost"**_

_**Option 2 "I seek directions to the nearest firing range"**_

_**Option 3 "I like your Doc Martin boots"**_

Casey judged the options, and gave a happy(ish) grunt as he pointed at the first option.

_Beep. _

He didn't see the options changed in reaction to his reaction, so this is what he actually held out to the unsuspecting couple:

_**Option 1 "I am proud of my enormous **__**schwanstüker"**_

_**Option 2 "I find your partner's breasts aesthetically pleasing"**_

_**Option 3 "Paisley is out of fashion. Still"**_

Judging by the reaction of the man and woman he'd stopped, something was wrong. He looked at the screen, and realised what he was pointing to.

"Nnnng!"

_Beep. _The screen changed again.

_**Option 1 "Rule number one, no pooftas**__**"**_

_**Option 2 "I find modern technology frustrating"**_

_**Option 3 "President Clintonoveskivetch was the greatest president we have ever had. Yes indeedy"**_

"NNNNgggh!"

_Beep. _

_**Option 1 "I am desperately in need of cheese**__**"**_

_**Option 2 "I am desperately in need of fruit"**_

_**Option 3 "In my opinion, president Reaganov was a whoopsy"**_

"Rrrwarrrrw!"

The phone _beep_ed faintly on its trajectory into the shrubbery forty seven feet away. There was no-one to read:

_**Option 1 "I am going to rip out your liver and strangle you with your own #error 234, possible repetition# and then dance on the remains in hob-nailed boots"**_

_**Option 2 "I am going to rip off you left arm, stick it in your left ear and ride you around the parade ground like a #error 3, syntax#"**_

_**Option 3 "I am going to..."**_ the display faded out on time-out.

Casey stomped off in the direction that the screaming couple did not.

-o0o-

"Chuck..."

"Sarah, I know you feel something for me."

"Chuck, I'm a spy... I'm your handler...I can't..." she shook her head and took a deep breath as she looked at him "Chuck, you can't fixate... this is hopeless..."

"Hmm" he smiled "I'm pretty sure its in my genetic code to be hopelessly fixated."

They rested foreheads together.

"I'm a doctor, you know. I could make up some sodium pentothal, find out the truth..." he danced an eyebrow or two. Her resolve weakened, as she though those eyebrows should be listed in the Geneva Convention.

"Chuck, I'm trained to resist truth serum..." she intimated as she somehow found herself wrigling closer to him.

"So..." he said as he now found himself chest to chest with her "You're saying there is _nothing_ I can do to prove my hypothesis..." he whispered to her as he wrapped her in his arms, their breath mingling.

"Do your worst Doctor Bartowski" her whisper trembled back to him.

"As you wish" he tried to say before she silenced him.

She really didn't mean for things to escalate like that. One moment, she was just talking with him and then she was kissed him, her lips crushed bruisingly to his…

They held each other tight, with such need. She'd just _melted_ against his body. His surprisingly muscular body, by the way. Her hands holding his face close, their mouths both hungrily devouring each other, and then delicately nibbling, lip pulling and then he was holding her with the one hand… and the other one was...Oh, dear God….

She realized, after coherent thought reluctantly and somewhat sluggishly returned to her pre-frontal cortex, that one of the desperately hungry moans was coming from her own traitorous throat.

"Um…." she untangled her leg from where it had found its way around behind Chuck all by itself. He brought his hands, as they trembled slightly, back from where they'd headed without a conscious direction from him. They separated about three feet, panting as if they'd run a marathon.

"…wow…"

"Look….Chu…."

"Sorry…..I should…"

"…um…"

"...Sarah, we should... shouldn't... "

"...we can't..."

They actually lasted a full one point oh three seconds. Their eyes never left each others during the moment that dragged for eternity.

And then that moment ended as she launched her-self at him. Chuck made the three foot separation easy for her to breach by trying to meet her halfway. He almost made it too.

"He shoots! He scores!" cried Morgan up in the games room as he triumphed with the plastic gun shaped game controller at the Duck Hunt screen. He wondered were Chuck was, because there was no way Chuck was having as much fun as he was...

It transpired that Morgan was wrong.

-o0o-

"Chuck?" called his mother. Nope, not in the library. Wasn't in main ops either. She stuck her head into the lab.

"Chuck?"

She was about to try somewhere else, when she heard a pair of guilty sounding 'shooshing' noises.

"Chuck?" she tried again.

"Mom!" cried Chuck in a seemingly pleased tone as he appeared from behind the desk a moment or two later. Sarah stood up beside him a few seconds later and greeted Mary also.

It didn't take being a field agent to notice that Chuck's hair was mussed up a lot more than normal, his shirt buttons were miss-aligned and his shirt was also untucked. Sarah was even more noticeably, oooh lets call it: 'thoroughly kissed.' Her hair had passed 'mussed up' several exits back and was well on its way to the 'dishevelled' off-ramp. Her lipstick was partially smeared around Chuck's mouth, face and neck, and she had a slightly glassy eyed smile as she straightened her hem line back down to a more modest elevation.

Mary's lips twitched to one side a little. This was just how she and...

"It's ah... it's ah...it's...it's..." Chuck's needle was stuck.

Mary allowed just a little steel to creep into her voice "We've just had a message from your _fiancée_. She'll be here within the hour. I suggest you put your shirt on the right side _out_" and with that, she spun on her heels and departed.

It this were a television program (or even more hopefully, a big budget feature film), the scene would have been staged thus: Chuck standing in front of Sarah, both facing the camera. Sarah's face would then display in loving slow motion, in the order that follows: shock, dismay and then betrayal as signified by her varied eyebrow and open mouth positions. Chuck's would initially display something similar to the expression of a person who has begun to suspect that the light at the end of the might just be diesel powered before he skwooshed his face up in preparation for the inevitable angry:

"CHUCK!"

This may or may not include a slap to Chuck's face depending on the rating of the potential television drama and/or big budget feature film.

Except this is real life. Chuck whipped around to face Sarah as soon as he realised there was a word said that had a problem associated with it.

Other than that, the inevitable happened.

Sarah also felt that the ratings, if there were any, were strong enough to include taking her hand off Chuck's face. Taking it off, necessitated applying it there in the first place. So she applied it there. From a swing beginning four feet somewhere behind her right shoulder. After that, they were both facing the hypothetical camera again.

-o0o-

Sarah had her game face on as she made one last check that Chuck's tie was straight, ensuring he was presentable, that they all were.

She still hadn't forgiven herself. Or him. It was all her stupid asset's fault. Him and his adorab... incoherent, she corrected herself, nervous babbling. And that damned smile of his. He'd been claiming he'd forgotten all about his _fiancée_ as soon as he'd met her. That she was his one-and-done. That was why he'd never mentioned her before. Ooh, she so mad at him. And herself. She'd _let_ this happen.

She calmed herself. Mission time. One last check around, that all was good...

At least Morgan's cargo 'hobbit pants,' as Morgan and Chuck called them even though they actually reached his ankles, were clean.

When the door to Castle was opened, there stood a tall, beautiful woman.

"Carina!" cried Chuck in a good imitation of pleased.

"Darling! Surprised?" enthused Carina.

"Oh, you can say that" agreed Chuck, rubbing his cheek with a slight grimace.

"Miss me?" ordered Carina, her arms out, demanding a hug.

Sarah stepped out from behind Chuck, "Not with the next shot. Skank" she announced as she bared her teeth to the new arrival. A quick head tilt, and then a smirk as she threaded her arm around a very surprised (for real this time) Chuck's arm.

"Hors de combat" Morgan uttered in an awed tone.

-o0o-

**A.N. – **Can I be craven, and ask for reviews please?


	9. I'll Take The One In The Toiban

-o0o-

**As of ****Halloween **2011, I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al. And I'm sure that the Toes In The Sand acronym was purely coincidental. Its just that Morgan and I (and Jeff on a good day) think the same...

I stuffed up. A while back, IMDB listed the season 5 premier as the 21st. So I spent half-an-hour searching for a download... I felt like this version of Casey trying to use his iPhone.

.

**Chapter Nine.**

-o0o-

Morgan looked at the stand-off between the two tall glamazons. His eyes sparkled like a kid in some kind of a science fictiony comic book / action figurine store, if they ever get around to building one.

"Hors de combat" Morgan uttered in an awed tone. When he noticed Chuck glaring at him, he said "What? That's French for 'The girls are fighting.'" Chuck continued to glare "...At least according to Wiki-translate it's supposed ... to...be..." Morgan trailed off, looking stage right.

The staring contest between Sarah and Carina broke, and the two smiled genuinely at each other and gave each other sisterly hugs. This surprised Chuck more than a little.

"See?" nudged Morgan "You keep the blonde, I'm gonna have a crack the six feet of lap land... Ow! Ow! Quid id! Bineabble! Bine..." Morgan's voice changed to a somewhat nasal pronunciation as Chuck applied his first ever nose hold.

Carina and Sarah were now regarding the boys. Carina was saying "...was kinda cute, in a geeky..."

"Uh, thadt's nerbd" tried Morgan, still struggling to escape the grip Chuck had on him. He tried to hold a finger up to show his point, before using that hand to swat Chuck's nose hold away.

"...even if he kisses OK, but God, it was snoresville. At least I had the odd mission to keep me busy..."

"Uh, ladies? Why don't we continue this discussion inside, we'll all be more comfortable" Chuck tried to be the gracious host, despite his teeth being clenched and the muscles on his jaw line twitching. He took a calming breath. It didn't work.

"Morgan, would you get the bags please?" Chuck asked, still determined to be the gracious host.

Morgan opened his mouth.

"Don't!" Chuck warned, holding up his now successful nose hold knuckles. Gracious didn't have to apply to Morgan.

Morgan shut his mouth. He brought Carina's suitcases inside, trying to figure out what was wrong with Chuck.

As they settled into the living area, Chuck had a slight manic look and a fixed smile. He asked what he felt was a fairly important question.

He also named a town located on the southern shore of Botany Bay that is by definition far, far away. Even for those good people living on the placid shores of far away Botany Bay.

"Far Ker_nell_ ... What the... What's going on?" he asked.

It was really unfortunate that Morgan joined the group at that time. Because Sarah's answer was a _bit_ of a surprise to both the boys. The coffee service Morgan was carrying suffered a nasty shock too. Morgan at least survived the shock.

"Carina's a skank."

And she said it with such an open expression too.

All in all, the boys took it worse than Carina did. Carina herself took pity on them and explained.

"Chuckie, Sarah's with T.I.T.T.Y. I'm with the Special Legal Unit of Transburbankylvania. S.K.A.N.K." spelled out a smiling Carina.

Morgan, after a bit of muttering and wiggling his fingers to himself for a moment, muttered "That er... that spells a _different_ word." They ignored him.

After a few moments of impersonating a stunned mullet, the fish type since his hair wasn't long enough for the other kind, Chuck closed his mouth. He rubbed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the migraine that he now felt sure was hanging over his head like a hanging pointy thing.

He was still warding the hanging pointy thing off when he asked "So, let me get this straight... You, you're both spies?"

"Uh huh" the spies answered in a manner that Chuck felt was far too cheerful for a question like that.

He glanced at the pair of them, before resuming the 'warding off ceremony' with renewed vigour and began "So, how come...'

"Welcome to the glamorous world of inter-agency cooperation, Chuck" Sarah smiled a, unseen by Chuck, lopsided smile. "When I became your handler, I had Carina's notes, but because she's from S.K... a different agency, her name was redacted from the reports."

"Same for me, Chuckie" nodded Carina "When Walks here became your handler my agency was taken out of the loop." Carina turned to Sarah "I got sent here to follow up, see that things were going swimmingly."

"Oh, that they are" smiled Sarah. She was looking at Chuck when she said that.

"Oh, by the way, I think the engagement is off" she was looking at Carina when she said that. Her predatory smile was purely a gratis bonus for her friend.

Carina sucked air through her teeth "Ooooh, don't know... after all, he _is_ a doctor..."

After Carina stubbornly refused to spontaneously burst into a mushroom cloud from the green lasers shooting into her, Sarah said "Why don't you chat with Morgan? Chuck's tired, I'll take him to bed."

And just like that, Chuck's hanging pointy thing loomed closer.

-o0o-

The imposing African-Transburbankylvanian Inspector Colt was having a troubling night. His men had let a prisoner escape. A subcontractor had welded a shonky weld, and this same prisoner who had terrorised respectable members of society using some kind of strange terrifying mix of technology and either mime or interpretive dance depending on the witness, as well as scattering a large group of excitable patrons from club El Buffo from their usual get together after a their semi-regular Friday gathering on the steps outside the police station.

He left the station to be cleaned up by the Police volunteers under the supervision of Sergeant Al Powellovitch while Colt organised the rest of his men to round up the El Buffo patrons. He'd need the extra help to capture this escaped prisoner.

Once the sizable posse was massed on Tomparisstrasse outside the station, he addressed the angry mob brandishing sharp farming implements and those 'indestructible' torches, the ones that take three d-cell batteries. Nice heft, very useful when used incorrectly to subdue a recalcitrant prisoner.

The mob had, upon reflection while debating the events of the evening over at Benniganski's, decided that even if the escaped prisoner was, or wasn't, the lead singer from Europe (there was still a matter of some debate regarding that, the members of the musical duo, Jeffster! were convinced he was. The other one hundred and seventeen needed more proof, even if they agreed his singing was spot on), his behaviour was 'not manners.'

Inspector Colt imposed his will over the massed crowd, and reminded them that "A riot is an ugly thing. Senseless violence of this nature is best left to the professionals and duly deputised representatives."

The excitable mix of heavily armed drunken mob and heavily armed (and naturally, sober) police went in search of the escaped prisoner with happy hearts that they were doing good, noble work.

-o0o-

Sarah had led Chuck to his room. And stayed. Which confused Chuck. Well, confused him right up until she started stripping him for bed. The word 'stripping' underestimates the urgency that accommodated this procedure. Sarah's proximity, his and her lack of clothing, and the kissing may have distracted him for some reason. Soon after that, she was _really_ able to distract him. Also, she made the potential migraine go 'poof' and vanish, but Chuck was too distracted to notice.

Afterwards, he lifted a stray strand of hair from her face and asked "I thought you were mad at me?"

She grinned as she partly buried her face into the pillow "Well, a little bit. And at me too. Because _you_" she clobbered him with his own pillow "failed to mention a fairly important piece of personal information."

Chuck returned her grin, and then turned serious "Well, I met you. And ... remember when we were refitting the lab?"

"Mmm hmm"

"About then I realised something...That I never loved anyone as much as I do you. And I never will. I genuinely forgot about..." Chuck hesitated, he didn't have a lot of experience in this field, but he was pretty sure mentioning a name at this stage was grounds for pillow clobbering again. "You, I love you, special agent Sarah Walker of the T.I.T.T.Y." he emphasises this with kisses timed to each letter of the acronym to the aforementioned special agent. He may have recycled a kiss location once or twice.

Chuck was pleasantly surprised to discover he was able to distract her, too.

-o0o-

The heated whispered conversation outside his room woke Chuck up. Both women seemed to be able to hiss entire sentences that had a basic lack of 'esses.'

"What? You got a case of the _frights_ in the night?" dripped with sarcasm.

"_I'm_ not his handler anymore. But _you_ are. Rules of engagement, remember? So, what were you doing in..."

"Listen, skank..."

Morgan's voice intruded. He at least failed to hiss his phrase, even with an ess or two in it "I think we're all well aware of Carina's agency, by this stage of the proceedings."

Sarah's reply hissed "That's _not_ what I'm talking about" before she returned to Chuck's room. She really tried to close the door quietly but looked over to see Chuck looking questioningly at her, she just smiled at him. From outside the conversation continued. She snuggled into Chuck's arms and ignored it.

"So, Carina... Say nothing, act casu... Owl! Ow! Quid id! Bineabble! Bine...Whabt id ibt wid da nobse hobd?"

"Martin? No... just no.."

"Uh...Ibt's Borgin ..."

-o0o-

A rough head or pitchfork count lead Casey to believe the angry posse was a hundred and fifty or so. A mixture of civvies and cops. There were just too many of them.

Casey went cross country. Imagine Creedence's 'Run Through The Jungle' playing as the drunken angry mob chased him through the night.

Only it was nothing like that. Casey ghosted effortlessly through the trees. The drunken angry mob suffered collateral attrition.

Jefferski alone managed to surprise and injure seventeen people (not including himself) with his highly suspect, yet perfectly legal Nurf Taser.*

Coincidentally, it was around that time that the 'socially excided' portion of the posse fell into a philosophical dispute amongst them selves regarding the socially redeeming merits of two television programs called 'The Kardashianskis' and 'Jerseystan Shores' (don't ask). Which then involved the police portion of the posse in resolving the matter. The solution to the dichotomy is not on record, but video evidence from the police Tasers is.**

Casey, on the other hand had no problems in finding the Orange Orange parking lot. Bypassing Castle security and entering the air ducts, he squirmed his way as quietly as possible, deep into the living quarters of Castle... and if you've ever tried doing that, you'll know how quiet that can be.

In his sleep, Morgan wondered if Thor, the god of thunder was nearby... which then segued into '_Captain America was a much better film_'... and from there into '_Padmé_...' for reasons best left alone for the moment.

After Casey popped a grill open and climbed out, things went much quieter. He went about Castle in search of that nerdy doctor. Casey felt the urge to put the fear of God, Casey and Reaganov into someone. That someone, he felt, should be the nerdy doctor.

The first bedroom he looked into had some sort of green and orange florescent light tubes fitted on to sword handle(s) and mounted, crossed over the bed. The occupant was moaning in his sleep something like "Pat me."

Casey closed the door "Urrrrgh."

The second bedroom was empty. A faint lingering scent of perfume and some scattered underwear that looked hideously expensive lead him to suspect he was in the wrong room.

Door number three wasn't 'just right' either.

At first, Casey thought it was also unoccupied. Then a tall red-headed woman walked out of the bath room.

Crap. Wrong room again.

"Hnnnnng!"

Carina stood hipshot, judging him. "So I've been told."

The way she was looking at him, made Casey feel less certain about ... something... what was he here for again?

"Mmmm."

"My sentiments exactly. Why don't we find somewhere less..." she looked around herself "... like geeks in a bunker."

She led him out the door, her arm around his "Have we met before? I feel I should know you from somewhere... I'm Carina."

"Mmmimm."

Carina took the opportunity to check out his butt as she closed the door. She thought to herself.

'_Woof'_

-o0o-

* Nurf Taser – Twin 24 volt batteries (Weight - seventeen kilograms. Each) not included. Adult supervision recommended. Some self assembly required.

Hand cart for carrying the two truck batteries sold separately. Batteries sold separately too.

(Nurf is a wholly owned, separate company, not having anything what-so-ever to do with a certain children's toy company that by a strange coincidence has a similarly pronounced name. So there)

** Click **here** for the video files. Parental Warning – these files contain violence of a mildly amusing nature.

-o0o-

**Special thanks** to PJ Murphy for _translating_ S.K.A.N.K. from the original Transburbankkylvanian.

**Also**, congrats to the All Blacks for winning Old Bill (sorry Kate, and my wife was with you on this one). Insert joke about the Haka and a sheep called 'Martie' here (and I can tell that joke, because my mum was born in the South Island).

Also if you get a chance, youtube 'Scottish haka' – it's hilarious.

-o0o-


	10. As Right As Rain

-o0o-

As of 08.11.11, I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**During the writing** of this chapter, my wife developed a summer (OK, a spring) cold. I'm not sure how, but she assures me that it is my fault.

**Chapter Ten.**

-o0o-

One again if this were a television drama, or, seeing as how negotiations haven't completely broken down yet, even more hopefully, a big budget Hollywood feature and it had been filmed in that mythical and long forgotten time when good guys could smoke cigarettes on camera, this was the moment that would show Casey lighting 'his-n-hers' smokes and passing the 'hers' portion over to Carina, and thereby implying that _significant moment(s)_ had passed between the pair.

Yes Oh Best Beloved, there was a dark time long, long ago when central characters could, and did, smoke on screen. This is difficult to believe, but it is true. Just as there was a time also long forgotten when department stores and shopping centres did not put their Holiday decorations up at the first of September.

Archaeological records indicate there was also once a misinformed time long ago when the short sighted and less inclusive 'Merry Christmas' was used as opposed to the currently more enlightened and wider sales encompassing 'Happy Holidays.' Difficult to believe, isn't it?

Even less credibly, there exists some hotly disputed archaeological fragmentary indications that during the Dark Ages, Easter eggs were only available for the brief period of only two weeks each year instead of being sensibly on sale throughout the entire year. Most recognised academics agree that this is an urban myth, created by parents to frighten small and gullible children.

Fortunately, this is not those dim dark, black-and-white days. Only bad guys smoke, or at least fiddle with Zippo lighters on screen exactly the same as in real life. And as with all rules, there are exceptions as your primary care-givers will tell you. Heroic older good guys are allowed to smoke cigars. Cigar smokers _never_ fiddle with Zippo lighters, as that ruins the cigar.

So, instead of smoking, Carina and Casey cuddled in the bedding department of the Salmon Spot Boutique department store, under the 'Happy Holidays' decorations that had been hanging there for just over a month, between the discounted surplus Halloween costumes and decorations (which were slated to be replaced with the Valentine's Day stock in another two weeks) and the Easter egg aisles. It was after trading hours and the security guard was snoring happily thanks to the tranquiliser dart embedded in his neck.

For those poor, benighted characters, the un-attached male portion of the population, 'cuddled' is a secret code word used by women for 'I'll talk, you listen.' It is alleged that this and other more secret code words are taught to girls in kindergarten while the little boys are still struggling with the finer concepts of finger painting (Whimpileaks document NCC-1701-D)

"Mmmm" she purred, as she stretched against him.

"Mmmim?"

"Yes _again_, but you're so encourageble..." she writhed incorrigibly.

It was the sound of the socially excited posse that broke the mood. Sufficient time and further alcohol supplies had passed so that the civilian section of the posse had actually transited beyond 'socially excited' into what politicians, their lackeys and the media euphemistically refer to as 'tired and emotional.'

Casey and Carina hid themselves at the glass doors to the Salmon Spot Boutique, hiding behind a ten foot tall inflatable Santa Clause which was on special, only eight hundred and forty nine wepdiggies, ninety nine aypees, or roughly thirty Euros.

Carina asked him "What, is it the peasants? There's only a hundred and fifty of them, we can take them easily."

"Nnngh"

"That faint muzac drifting across the parking lot? Yeah, it's just Enya. I hate that too. So depressing."

-o0o-

Chuck had an epiphany.

He jerked awake, dragging a grumpy Sarah along with him.

Chuck would later discover that Sarah preferred to be woken slowly, and in gentle stages, preferably with a warm breakfast involving bacon, pastries and or pancakes, along with real coffee waiting. If this procedure was not followed, there would be penalties, but if done correctly, the rewards were... distracting.

But she didn't have time to react this time. Chuck had dragged her along with him as he headed down to the lab, pausing only to gather Morgan along the way.

Once in the lab Sarah, and to a lesser extent Morgan, shuffled piteously around looking for coffee in a forlorn manner while Chuck enthusiastically began reorganising the equipment.

"What's he doing again?" yawned Morgan.

"Mmmimmno" managed Sarah. She was beginning to regret allowing this, and even more the decision to disarm herself, or more specifically allowing Chuck to disarm her, before bed. She'd let herself be blindsided by short term benefits over the longer term opportunity to hurt someone who'd ruined a good nights sleep. Although, some of those 'short term benefits' were pretty darn good...

The noise that a very noisy stainless steel operating table made as it was dragged unwillingly over the equally resistant concrete by a disgustingly awake Chuck next to the original roused her out of her stupor. "Morgan" she grabbed him one-handed by the pyjama shirt "Coffee" she demanded.

This woke Morgan sufficiently to nod in a slightly terrified manner and back away from her, his eyes now wide open. He bolted for the door. For his sake, it had better have been for the coffee.

Sarah for reasons she couldn't explain, resisted the urge to tap Chuck's forehead lovingly into the concrete of the walls and floor, instead rested her own against his chest. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her.

"Hmm?"

She kept her eyes closed and asked his chest "Watcha doin?"

Chuck discovered the dangerous sport of making a mess of her hair with his chin bristles. "I think I've figured out a way to make things work. If I can compensate his own brain against the fault in the implant, why he'd be...urk."

She lifted her head to gaze lovingly at him. This was about the time when she realised that her hair was falling into her face, and she realised what he'd done. Her revenge involved tickling. And then some kisses to round out the revenge. His last 'chin groom' was purely accidental and her own fault when Morgan came back in bearing coffee. She raised her head eagerly at the smell off the coffee.

"I can't find Carina" said Morgan as he handed the mugs around.

"Meh. She's a big girl" was Sarah's evaluation. The coffee was much more vital.

"We need to get this set up and then find Casey" said Chuck focussing on his first problem "If we can map the occipital lobe in my brain, we should be able to use that as an overlay to compensate for the fault in the implant. Morgan can you help me move the brain scanner nearer to this table?"

"Just a bit of harmless brain alteration, right" muttered Morgan. He'd seen that claymation movie about the were-rabbit...

After setting up the lab, they went up to the Orange Orange and plugged Chuck's iPhone into the speakers and cranked up Enya once again.

-o0o-

Casey and Carina moved silently through the parking lot, keeping out of view of the line of torches carried by the tired and emotional mob, which were having their own troubles keeping a straight line by now. In military parlance, they were 'contouring.' A phenomenon where each member of the unit holds the same level of ground as they patrol along, instead of holding a straight compass bearing. In more common terms they were all over the place like a mad woman's forty seven cats.

Carina's voice could be heard grousing "What's the big hurry anyway, it's not like you're expecting an important phone call. God, you better not be heading back to brag..."

"See, there she is. Told you she was fine" said Sarah indicating Carina to Morgan. Morgan was disappointed to notice that Carina and the monstrous Casey were working closely together.

Morgan and Chuck opened the gate in the chain link fence and let them in and from there into the Orange Orange, and took Casey down to the lab via a walk-in freezer that had retinal scans and a set of stairs that opened up into the main ops section of Castle. Chuck wondered briefly at the level of paranoia that was required to consider this a standard feature...

They would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those damn meddling musicians...

-o0o-

Both Casey and Chuck were on the operating tables, Chuck wearing what looked suspiciously like a floral swim cap (circa nineteen seventies) on his head with dozens of leads running to the bank of computers. Casey's USB was simply just plugged in.

"Ready Chuck?" Sarah wanted to know.

"Do it"

"Casey?"

"Gnnh"

_Beep_

"_**By all means, let us get this interminable process over and done with"**_ See? Chuck was right, it worked a lot better with less noise pollution.

"Geez, Chuckie you really are a geek..."

Sarah growl muttered something that ended in "...erd.

With Sarah and Carina watching nervously, Morgan clicked the mouse.

'Copying source file' appeared on the screen, along with a process bar across the bottom of the screen that seemed to move with the alacrity of those heady days of the internet when modems made a sound like a fax machine, and it took all night to view two photos on what Morgan had told his mom was 'an internet dating site.'

It was when the process bar was at five percent, that Jefferski found the old Orange Orange store.

-o0o-

A stray thought got lost and crossed Jefferski's mind – a dangerous place for a young thought, out alone by itself, after dark.

"Gummy bears..."

Jefferski liked gummy bears. He decided he would 'find his way' into the old store, and see if there were any available. Visions of dozens of little gummy bears all lined up, pining away at the glass filled his head and they were tapping (can one 'tap' with paws made of gummy?) on the glass, calling out to him... _Jefferski... Jeff-errrr-ski...don't you love us no more?_

Jefferski set about climbing the fence. The two lines of barbed wire at the top caused him to move cautiously. He decided on using the hinged side of the gate. So, as he threw his leg over the top of the gate, his weight caused the gate to swing wide open, leaving Jefferski feeling a little foolish for not testing the gate first. Lesterovitch magnanimously held the gate steady for his friend to finish his assault on the north face of the gate, and climb back down triumphantly, if three feet further away from his target than when he'd started, thanks to the gate swinging outwards.

The commotion of Lesterovitch laughing his guts up attracted the attention of some of the others. And then Jefferski's lost meme found more homes.

"Gummy bears! Guys, there are gummy bears in there!"

"Poor little guys..."

"So alone, and delicious..."

"They're calling out to me..."

For a Cold War bunker wearing a yogurt shop as a disguise, you'd think the design specs would have included shatter proof, or at least laminated glass across the store front.

That is what the specs say on paper. What actually happened was that Millbarge Glass – Glaziers To The Poncy – had billed the government for the stronger glass, but installed the less expensive option, and pocketed the difference.

Regular glass proved no problem to the tired and emotional crowd craving a sugar fix. Not when the crowd comes pre-prepared with farm implements ready for the harvest, or if someone leaves the old tables and chairs foolishly outside the glass. Or forgets to lock the gate.

After that, there was a munching sound when the gummy bears were discovered.

-o0o-


	11. An Entirely Different Matter

-o0o-

As of 15.11.11, I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

**Chapter Eleven.**

-o0o-

The dust on the gummy bears left the tired and emotional mob cotton mouthed and desperately seeking refreshments. The sugar rush rushed past them and emphasised to tired part of tired and emotional. Actually, the 'emotional' bit received more than a bit of a boost too.

All in all, the aftermath of any feeding frenzy is never a pretty sight. The bodies lay scattered everywhere, some barely breathing, along with some half masticated but never domesticated gummy bears. It had been short, messy and violent.

To give some indication of the great gummy carnage that had occurred, imagine that at the height of the Roman Empire, the Roman proletariat might have sat down at the end of a hard days slog at empire building, just to catch up on the evenings news and sports, the sports segment of the days information as reported live from children's matinee at the Circus Maximus might have been relayed with the results: 'Lions fifteen, Christians nil.'

That would be assuming that the Romans had enough town heralds to make 'villa calls.' The (accurate) full time score reported above should also reflect the point that, on the whole, Christians are generally larger than gummy bears, and as such are far more filling.

The first of the bodies on the floor stirred, and somewhat like the coming zombie apocalypse, their utterances were a unified, hair raising call.

"..beeer..."

"..Beeeer..."

"..a white wine spritzer..."

"...beer..."

Fortunately, the larger part of the posse not involved in, what would be recorded in the annals as, The Great Gummy Bear Frenzy of 2011 found the survivors of the massacre and were able to restore some level of vitality with that life giving nectar.

The one idiot of Sub Continent-Transburbankylvanian extraction, who bleeted piteously for a wine cooler was wisely ignored.

-o0o-

Sarah hovered over Chuck. Carina hovered over Casey. Morgan, observing the general consensus, found the only thing he could hover over was the computer, so he hovered over that.

The two men on the operating tables seemed to be doing a very good interpretation of a 'Corsican twins' twitching, eye rolling and muttering.

Twice each woman looked over at Morgan with unasked questions. At the fourth time Morgan shrugged, spread his hands and replied honestly "Unninno."

_Beep_

_**Option one "I am unsure at this time"**_

_**Option two "Perhaps you can check back with me later about this"**_

_**Option three "Why is it that you meander to the sound of a different bag pipe player"**_

"We can probably turn that off, if this goes well, we won't need it anymore" said Morgan, as he checked which phone had beeped.

_**Copied source file: 78% **_read the main computer screen.

"This is worse than waiting for the last episode of Downton Abbey to down-loa... not that I would download pirated material off the net..." Morgan filled in the easy companionable silence. The two women's hot glares filled the easy companionable silence even more, so much more, that Morgan felt comfortable not speaking any more.

_**Copied source file: 79%**_

Sarah wanted to run her fingers through Chuck's hair, but the cables plugged into his cap prevented that. She took on of his hands in hers.

As she lifted Chuck's right hand, Casey's right hand mirrored Chucks. Carina took the lone hand.

When the hand squeezed, both women smiled.

_**Copied source file: 80%**_

It was somewhere in the low nineties when the torch brandishing mob burst into the lab.

-o0o-

By this stage and after a long, both time and distance wise, chase across Lower Transburbankylvania (a successful estate agent ploy implying that the prices and taxes charged in Upper Transburbankylvania and Encinograd Heights are wholly justified), even the police portion of the mob were tired and emotional as well.

Considering the lateness of the hour and the general condition of the posse, the mob found their way inside Castle with alarming ease. Again, for a former government Cold-War bunker, access was disturbingly easy for a large and angry hostile force. This time, the fine construction work of H. Tang Constructions was not to blame. Morgan really should have checked things properly after putting the cat out, but he was distracted by Carina turning up and all.

So, all in all, the group of spies and their assets (We will include Morgan in this but there is still some debate), the collective noun for which is a 'redaction,' were slightly surprised when the door burst open and roughly one hundred and fifty people tried to head down the stairs all at once. Not all of them made it uninjured by the stairs, or at least by the sudden stop ten feet below the top of the stairs. This gave time for Sarah and Carina to correctly surmise that the unannounced arrival of one hundred and fifty guests who had 'seen their lights were on and decided to pop by' was somehow Morgan's responsibility, and frankly added fuel to the debate regarding the including Morgan in on the redaction.

The famed and well respected Prussian Field Marshal, Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder) once recorded in his memoirs that _'No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.'_ Although, he probably wrote it in German. Sadly, the mob facing down Sarah and Carina had not studied their Moltke (the Elder) with more detail while in school. Or at least should have had a battle plan of some sort in mind before storming Castle.

Sarah and Carina on the other hand _had _studied their Moltke (the Elder), E.E. Milne and even some von Clausewitz.

The stand-off stood tense for ages. Both Sarah and Carina were eyeballing the armed mob to a stand still. The progress bar read 99% It was almost done. That, sadly, was when Morgan made his move.

He grabbed a stapler off the desk, flipped it open and held it to Chuck's neck. He totally knew how to use this...

"Next man moves, the nerd gets it!" he threatened threateningly.

Lesterovitch squealed "Eeeeee! Oh lordy, I think he serious!"

All eyes in the mob turned as one to Lesterovitch. He thought about life, the universe and everything for a moment...

"...Oh...right... sorry..." after what he felt was a long enough pause (it wasn't), he turned to Jefferski and asked "I thought you said these Bartowski's got all the hot women?"

"Yeah?..." said a distracted Jefferski.

"Well, these two look pretty angry. I mean _really_ angry. Which is a kind of hot, I guess..."

-o0o-

Lesterovitch tried to correct the women: "Isn't that supposed to be 'over _my_ dead body?'"

There were two growled "No"s.

"Oh, I thought... well, things have sure changed... Is it just me or did someone turn up the air conditioning in here?"

"_**Copying process complete. Please wait..."**_

"Not the spinny wheely thing... not that now" Morgan showed he was still able to focus.

While Sarah and Carina were able to decimate large numbers on a manner that frankly should have been filmed in slow motion, soft focus and possibly involving a wind machine as well, two super agents could not stop all of the crowd from reaching the man on the operating table.

Rough hands yanked the cap off Chuck's noggin. It took two goes, but was successful after one of them undid the chin strap. Unseen or hear by the crowd, the spinny circle thing stopped spinning, and the computer said "Ta-da!"

Morgan and Chuck would under other circumstances have been very proud of that 'Ta-da!' as it had taken a combined effort of the pair of them to set that up. Using Morgan's Darth Vader (limited – even if Sarah pointed out that the edition number was a suspicious sixteen digits long, collectors edition) Voice Changer helmet, they had recorded Chuck saying the requisite line, and then filtered the result through another computer, _tweaking_ the properties just a smidge. Imagine, if you will, the dark lord of the Sith, but voiced by either Chip, or Dale. Morgan really wanted to, at some later stage, re-record the whole of Lord Vader's lines from Empire Strikes Back using the same technology.

-o0o-

"Put that moron down!" bellowed an unfamiliar voice. Morgan looked around, since he was the one most used to being called 'moron.'

It was Casey! Casey was sitting up.

The background noise in the lab dwindled to a dull roar. There were murmurings of:

"Who's that?"

"The monstrous one awakes"

"See? Told you he was the front man from Europe!"

"The six million wepdiggy man" (which grossly underestimated both Casey's value and the cost of the entire project for that matter).

"Just why should we put him down? You're next"

"Because I will rip each one of your heads off, and shit down your necks" roared Casey in a parade ground voice.

That put a damper on the festivities for a moment. Some of the braver ones (at the back) did some rough maths regarding that, but they felt he might be prepared to hold the ones with intact necks until it was time, so to speak.

Inspector Colt became aware that things might have gotten out of hand, just a little, and if they continued the way the looked like they wanted to continue, well, there would be a lot of paperwork. He hated paperwork, it gave him the heebie-jeebies.

"Well, that is an entirely different matter..." muttered Colt, overcoming his heebie-jeebies. And then said to Sarah "Your monster, he's good."

Morgan muttered "I thought using Chuck's overlay, that would give him a more eloquent mode of speech..."

"Yeah, well if I wanted to make them feel _special_ and get in touch with my girly side and crap like that, I'll call you" growled Casey.

"Ok, actually about that I've got some self help booksss... shutting up now."

"Ladies and gentlemen..." actually Colt was pretty sure the crowd was all male, but like Lesterovitch, there were one or two he wasn't a hundred percent about so he allowed a fudge factor "Perhaps we should all adjourn to the Lumber Yard" he said naming the nearby gentleman's establishment that featured a nightly demonstration of the Polish national dance as well as a surprising number of non-structural and yet load bearing floor to ceiling poles for some reason, "For a little Chunky Monkey and some schnapps!" He felt that some demonstration of Poland's national dace by the all female review in what he was assured was national costume might ease the tension he and some of his men were feeling right now.

Once the mob had left the party to adjourn to the Dancing Pole club, Carina plastered herself against Casey. Sarah made sure Chuck was alright. When he opened his eyes, he found himself immersed in a desperate Sarah hug.

That was also when she proposed to him. Only it was more of an order, or demand, than the traditional on-bended-knee request for a hand (as well as the rest of the body) in marriage.

She took his slightly addled "...Um...?" as a yes.

Just as well too.

-o0o-


	12. Sweet Mystery

-o0o-

As of 23.11.11, I don't own Chuck (or any material referenced from popular culture) et al.

Special thanks to my friend quistie64 for being my one hundredth review on this (and my second in total). About ten minutes after I posted the previous chapter, I got a call that my father was in hospital, so I flew back home to Coffs and dropped this (as well as work, but who cares) like a hot brick. All is good now, but for the first time and at the age of 87, my dad looked old.

**Chapter Twelve.**

-o0o-

Chuck found himself being held tightly by a trembling Sarah. He was a little confused, the past hour or so, he'd been linked to Casey by the computer, and was only vaguely aware of the outside world.

Had it worked? He assumed so, otherwise why was Sarah hugging him. But why was she trembling? It wasn't like she'd been scared or anything. She was Sarah Walker...

And only just moments before, he'd been in Casey's brain... Scary place that. Memories of watching the Moon landing as a kid... The entire platoon singing "We're not gonna take it" as they marched during basic training... The copper taste of fear during a hairy approach while learning to fly... Getting shot, more than once...

So, Chuck went from that, to having the woman he loved tremble in his arms. What just happened?

She whispered in his ear "Charles Irving Bartowski, I don't want you to ever scare me like that again... So in order to keep you safe, and keep an eye on you, you're gonna marry me, got it?"

"...Uh...?"

"Good boy" and she kissed him.

Somewhere there was a teeny tiny part of Chuck's brain trying to think logically... Marriage, Sarah and he... that would mean he'd need a ring... two rings...

Then she moved against him, and he forgot all about ... Was he supposed to be thinking about some...? What was he thinking about again?

Whatever...

Sarah was far more important than anything he could think of right now.

"Cripes, moron. Get a room."

-o0o-

Much to Sarah's frustration (and just a minor point here, a frustrated Sarah is... Ooooh, lets go with 'terrifying.' Chuck was _very_ glad he was not the cause of said frustration and made a large mental Post-It written in thick Sharpie to _never ever _ever frustrate his love) they needed to wait before they could be married.

And T.I.T.T.Y. weren't all that happy with her either. The head of the agency made a note that in twenty or so years, to send the ugliest, grumpiest agent available if, make that when, the Bartowski name crossed this desk again. First Frost, now Walker... What were these Bartowskis? Spy magnets?

By the end of the second week, she seemed to calm down a tad. This gave Chuck time to haul his sister and brother-in-law out of Africa to attend the wedding. He was also able to regain enough higher brain function to remember that they would need an engagement ring, and some wedding bands.

Getting to a jeweller was both problematic and easy. Chuck, foolishly, tried to sneak out alone to start looking. Didn't work. She wouldn't let him out of her sight.

"Chuck? Where do you think you're going?"

"...Um... there's a new Call Of Du...oof... hello" he looked up into her eyes as she now rested comfortably atop of him as they lay after she'd tackled him in the living room. At least no-one else would see the rug burn on his chest.

"Hi" she smirked. "Sure you weren't trying to sneak out? Maybe look at some _diamond _rings? Hmm?"

What was it about diamonds? Even Carina and his mother got infested with this bizarre diamond fever. Three hard nosed spies suddenly went all girly girl at the thought of an engagement ring. Bridal magazines were found lurking in the unlikeliest of places, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting males.

Chuck was tempted to plead to Casey for help, but he'd been a bit grumpy towards Chuck when he found three glossy magazines that featured a lot of women wearing white dresses in his favourite weapons locker. Which Chuck was reliably informed, is coincidentally called a magazine.

And then Ellie turned up. Ellie loved Sarah, to Chuck's relief for a fear he didn't know he'd had.

When his sister first saw him, her squeal of happiness nearly burst the eardrums of five parties, and a nearby West Highland terrier called 'Wee Jock' tried to join in. Morgan was lost in love at the sight of his friend's big sister, and wasn't paying attention.

Casey looked at Chuck and said "Huh" before stomping off to be elsewhere. Desperately elsewhere.

Chuck, Morgan and even Casey, despite his best efforts not, to learned new buzzwords. Marquee. Bonbonnieres. Motif(s).

Things got easier when Chuck acquiesced, and was allowed to be dragged along with the women on a 'recky' to find targets of opportunity in the better (which Chuck discovered was code for 'hideously expensive') jewellery stores Transburbankylvania boasted. By the fifth hour, he was ready to gnaw his own arm off.

Sarah, Ellie, Carina and Mary on the other hand were just hitting their stride.

She found her ring on the second day, and third viewing of the ring. It was elegant and beautiful.

"Just like you" he said. He also made another mental Post-It note, to make sure she smiled at him like that every day, for the rest of his life. After finding the engagement ring, the wedding bands were simple.

Having acquired an engagement ring, Chuck then felt he needed to double check the proposal (mind you, Sarah had made her feeling regarding this alarmingly obvious). He proffered the little red box to her with the ring sparking at her, and on traditional bended knee asked "Sarah Walker. Will you marry me?"

Sarah's answer involved the word 'idiot' but they'd leave that bit out when they eventually told their children. They would also omit the fact that both of them were rather sweaty at the time.

Actually, they'd end up sticking with a tag-team combination of 'Ask your father' and 'She asked me, OK? Now stop bothering me' but they didn't know that yet.

-o0o-

The wedding itself was low-key, simple and straight forward, despite all these keen minds with no experience (Mary and Stephen's had been in front of a judge) helping.

Morgan offered to dust off his United Federation of Planets authorization (and uniform) to perform the ceremony. Sarah, Carina and Mary's response involved the word 'idiot' amongst others.

Casey's identity with G.R.U.N.T. had been updated, and he'd even been promoted to half Colonel. This, Sarah discovered, authorized him to perform wedding ceremonies under an obscure law dating back to the revolution.

As a result, "Dearly belov... ugh. Do I have to..." came Casey's voice from the speakers.

"YES!" came the reply from all the females concerned.

"Ughh... we are gathered here to join these two..." Chuck rather felt that Casey left the pause long enough to fit the word 'morons' in there, but he let it slide "...in matrimony. Do you have the rings?"

-o0o-

Carina fulfilled the bridesmaids time honoured role of landing a man at the wedding. To Morgan's disappointment, she went against stereotype, and didn't let the 'wedding celebrant' out of her sight.

"Honey?" she asked him around a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Mmm?"

"I hope you didn't find the General's mission too boring."

Casey barely looked up from the mission briefs "Uh-uh."

"I know she can be a bit overbearing..."

"Mmm mmh"

"Oh, did you see? I installed a special locker in the armoury for your dirty knives and used cartridges"

"Uh huh"

"Ready for me?"

"Mmmm?"

"You can ravish me now" she said in a tone that implied he should have been paying attention.

"Mmmm!" he threw the mission papers away.

"Good. Now where did I leave those hand cuffs?" she wondered. Casey's eyebrows rose slightly at that.

-o0o-

It was later, when Dr and Mrs Bartowski prepared for their first night together as a married couple, that Chuck decided he was glad they'd held a small BBQ as opposed to a large reception. That meant that they bypassed the garter ceremony. As he watched his wife – he grinned hugely at that, his wife! – remove her knife sheath from her thigh, he decided that that was a good thing. Otherwise he might have thrown the wrong garter, and accidentally recreated the iconic scene from Mad Max II, The Road Warrior. Fwoop fwoop fwoop, plop, plop. And there go your fingers...

"What?" she paused in her slow motion removal of the knives. He was smiling goofily. Again.

"I love you"

"Riiiight"

She contemplated removing a knife to find out what he was grinning idiotically about. But decided she had better weapons... she crossed the bed towards him, knee walking over the covers.

"I can make you talk, you know... Ve haf vays of making you...mmmm... No fair kissing the interrogating officer like that"

"Like what... this?"

"...Uh...not sure, can you try that again... yeah..." she opened her eyes and looked around. Somehow she was now lying down on the bed, Chuck hovering close overhead "...like that."

She wrapped her arms around him to draw him in closer. He was more than happy to oblige.

"Um, Chuck?"

"Mmm?"

She rolled him over, pinning him under herself.

""Voof!"

After that, the conversation turned non verbal.

-o0o-

**Thank you very much** for letting me play around with two mismatched ideas. I had a lot of fun channelling my inner PG Wodehouse and Douglas Adams, and I hope you enjoyed it as well.

Thank you for reviewing, thank you for the favourites, and most of all thank you for reading.

If you are a fan of Adams, give Wodehouse's _Jeeves_ stories a go: Think 'Downton Abbey' but written by Douglas Adams...

John.

September to November 2011.

-o0o-


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